


Your Ghost

by Gruoch



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Addiction, Bad Fake Science, Dumbass Geniuses, Endgame/FFH compliant for like two sentences, Existential Crisis, F/M, Family Reunions, Father-Son Emotional Disaster Duo, Fix It, Gen, High Strangeness, Magical Shenanigans, Resurrection Of A Sort, Substance Abuse, a literal new lease on life, emphasis on disaster, excessive outdated pop culture references, family dramedy, then spits on canon's grave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24183694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gruoch/pseuds/Gruoch
Summary: After a minute, there’s the noise of a lock being fumbled with, and then the door opens and there’s Peter, looking like he’s just rolled out of bed, his hair a mess of untamed curls. He blinks groggily at Tony for a moment, frowning. Then his face goes very, very white.“Boo,” Tony says.Peter slams the door shut so hard one of the hinges comes loose from the wall.
Relationships: Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe) & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 243
Kudos: 885
Collections: Avengers as Family, Avidreaders Avengers completed faves, Avidreaders Spiderman completed faves





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> GIANT shout-out to blondsak, who inspired me to lean into the weird with this one, and to all the kind people who held my hand while this story kicked my ass.

The last face Tony sees before he drifts away is Pepper’s, her soft smile cutting through the hazy red clouds gathering at the edges of his vision, before everything descends into darkness.

The first face he sees when he opens his eyes again is Stephen Strange’s, which feels like one hell of a downgrade.

Not that Tony’s complaining—it’s not everyday you wake up from the dead.

“What’s up, doc?” Tony says—or at least, that’s the kind of nonchalant salutation he’ll wish he’d said to that pompous jackoff, later on when he’s recovered enough to think about this more clearly.

What he really says is a wheezy, panicked, _“What the fuck?,”_ which is at least probably the more appropriate tone for the situation he finds himself in—lying flat on his back in an unfamiliar room, buck naked, while an asshole wizard looks down his nose at him.

“You are at the Sanctum Sanctorum in Greenwich Village. It’s currently the twelfth of January in the year twenty-twenty-nine. You’ve been dead for the past five years, and now you’re not,” Strange tells him, offering him a bathrobe.

“Welcome back,” the sorcerer adds, almost as an afterthought.

Tony shakily pushes himself upright, slipping the bathrobe on. “I was dead, and now I’m not? How incredibly succinct. Did you do this?”

“Absolutely not,” Strange says firmly, which Tony frankly finds a little insulting. “This is likely nothing more than an unintended result of an unstable entity’s misguided and near-catastrophic manipulation of probability and reality.”

“I feel like you’re leaving out a lot of important details, Doc.”

Strange waves a hand. “Our reality is presently secure once more. That’s all you need to know.”

Tony squints at him. “Are you seriously yada-yada-ing resurrection from the dead? There are entire religions with billions of followers based on this kind of thing.”

“We’re talking about incredibly complex magic that would confound even the most learned and exceptional practitioners of the mystic arts,” Strange says. “I don’t have the time to explain it to a completely ignorant neophyte.”

“Completely ignorant neophyte? That feels a little unfair. Not to toot my own horn, but I did invent time travel,” Tony reminds him. “And I didn’t cheat like you did with your fancy little magic stone.”

“Yes, I recall,” Strange says, in a tone that suggests he isn’t all that impressed.

“Still think we should have shoved that rock down the garbage disposal, avoided this whole mess,” Tony adds, just to annoy him.

Strange doesn’t take the bait. He gives Tony a bundle of clothes that thankfully look like average streetwear and not like something you’d find at a DragonCon organized by kung fu movie enthusiasts, and then directs Tony to a bathroom down the hall.

Left alone, Tony shucks off the robe, then takes a very long piss, one that is both satisfying and a little weird, considering that he’s been dead for five years and hasn’t had anything to eat or drink since returning to the land of the living.

He’s pondering whether the pee was just...resurrected with the rest of him when he catches sight of himself in the oval mirror hanging on the wall over the sink. His reflection looks, by and large, as he remembers it, except that the circular scarring in the center of his chest left over from the surgery to remove the arc reactor is gone. He runs his fingers over the smooth unblemished skin covering his sternum and takes a deep breath, finding that his lungs expand to full-capacity without any discomfort, which is definitely new.

“Huh,” he says, shaking off and zipping up his donated jeans. This is all a lot to take in, and he feels like if he examines it too closely right now, he’ll explode into million tiny shards. So he decides to squash it into the back of his mind for the time being, to be picked apart later when he’s hopefully feeling less fragile.

“So,” Tony says, when he’s finished up dressing and returns to the room he’d awoken in. “What now, Doctor?”

“I suppose you get on with your life here,” Strange says, leading Tony through a maze of dark rooms and hallways filled with dusty books and bizarre artifacts.

“That’s it? You seriously don’t want to investigate this further?” Tony asks, tripping over the edge of a worn rug.

“In the grand scheme of things, manipulation of reality is highly dangerous but not particularly extraordinary,” Strange says dismissively. “As I said, the issue has been resolved. Your presence on our plane of existence is likely merely collateral damage. To attempt to undo it could potentially cause more harm than good, so we’ve elected to leave it be—so long as it shows no signs of instability.”

“Wow, you really know how to make a guy feel special,” Tony deadpans, choosing to ignore that last part of the wizard’s statement.

They turn down another hallway and then pass into the expansive foyer, where Tony can remember first receiving that message of impending doom from Banner and Strange and Wong all those years ago with a kind of brutal clarity.

“Is my—” _wife,_ Tony almost says, before remembering that he’s been dead for five years and that, at least legally speaking, the bonds of his marriage probably no longer apply.

“Does Pepper still live around here, or...?” he asks instead, fumbling a little.

“Miss Potts currently resides in the city, yes,” Strange says, with just a touch more softness than Tony’s ever heard him express. “Your old address, near Central Park.”

“Great,” Tony says with a slightly hysterical brightness. “That’s great, that’s—I have a lotta fondness for that property. Gets a lot of natural light. It was the first place Pep and I bought together, you know—as an official couple, I mean. I’m glad she kept it. Although I suppose she could have made a killing selling it just on the nostalgia factor alone...”

Tony’s rambling trails off. Strange is giving him a _look,_ any softness gone from his expression.

Tony clears his throat. “Anyway. Thanks for...whatever.”

“You’re welcome. Best of luck, Stark.”

Strange opens the door for him, and Tony steps out into the bright, cold world beyond. He stops on the sidewalk, blinking rapidly, while pedestrians shoulder past him.

“Here,” Strange says, holding out a crumpled wad of cash.

Tony takes it, frowning.

“For taxi fare,” Strange explains. “For all intents and purposes, you are a dead man without a bank account.”

“Right,” Tony says, pocketing the bills. “You can’t just portal me to the Upper East Side?”

“No,” Strange says shortly, before closing the door.

“What a prick,” Tony says to no one. He’s not exactly an optimist, but he takes that as a hopeful sign that maybe some things haven’t changed too much in the years he’s spent dead.

***

Still, he doesn’t rush straight home.

Now that he’s out of the wizard’s funhouse and dumped back onto the cold, anonymous streets of the city, the whole reality of this situation is starting to set in. It feels more than a little overwhelming and disorienting, and he needs some time to get his head screwed on straight before he springs his re-existence on the loved ones he’d left widowed and fatherless for five years.

Five years. Morgan would be nine now. And Pepper...and Pepper...

_Get on with your life here,_ Strange had told him. Tony wonders how much of a life is still left for him now, in a world that kept turning while he was gone.

_That had been the goal, though, hadn’t it?_ a voice in the back of his mind reminds him. Lay down on the wire, so that Morgan and Pepper could live in a safer world. So that families could be reunited, get themselves a piece of that peace. This is a world Tony wasn’t supposed to see, and there is a mounting panic in the pit of his stomach that’s screaming about how he doesn’t belong here.

He wanders a couple more blocks down the sidewalk, past people who brush by, ignoring him. A few of them briefly glance towards him as they pass, their faces registering no recognition—and why would they? Tony Stark is dead and gone. He’s walking around in a flesh-and-blood body but he’s still a ghost, he realizes.

He pauses his existential angst-ing to scrape gum off the bottom of his shoe—white knock-off Keds, bland and sensible and something Tony would never wear unless in dire straits, and things are starting to feel a little dire—and then he looks up, his line of sight fixing right on a mural painted on the side of the building across the street. It’s a mural of him, a little faded and grubby but a decent likeness. There’s a wilted bouquet of flowers lying at the base of the mural on top of a low mound of dirty grey snow, the leaves and flowers just starting to brown and curl at the edges.

Gone, but maybe not entirely forgotten.

Tony steps to the curb and raises a hand overhead, hailing a cab.

***

He wasn’t kidding when he told Strange that he was fond of the building he and Pepper had purchased together, back in the early weeks of their engagement.

As far as properties he owns go, this one is relatively low-key, the building charming and stately and a little old-fashioned—more to Pepper’s taste than his. It’s most appealing quality—aside from the incredible natural light it gets all day long—is that it’s close to Central Park, and there had been this little unspoken fantasy in the back of Tony’s mind while they’d been property hunting, a fantasy that had involved running along the park’s trails with one of those fancy jogging strollers that cost more than a midsize sedan.

The fantasy had come to fruition, but not in the way he had envisioned it, the exquisite joy of bringing Morgan into the world tempered by the grief and failure that hung like a cloud over everything.

His homecoming is feeling very similar—joy clouded by fear, but he’s spent his last dollar on the cab fare and his choices are either to man-up and go inside, or spend a night freezing to death on a park bench.

He takes a deep breath—and wow, he thinks, it really is nice to be able to do that without the usual sharp pinch he’d get—and heads up the stairs to the building’s entrance.

He tries the old code out on the security pad, is both pleased and little chagrined when it works and the door opens for him. He steps into the warm foyer, cheap sneakers squeaking on the immaculate marble floor as he makes his way over to the elevator.

“Hey, FRI? You still there?” Tony asks once the elevator doors slide closed.

_“Hello, boss. It’s been a long time,”_ the A.I. replies.

“Sure has, sweetheart,” Tony says, smiling and feeling a little more at ease. “Did you miss me?”

_“It certainly has been quieter without you around.”_

Tony snorts. “Were you always this sassy? Do me a favor—bring me home.”

_“Anything for you, Mr. Stark.”_

The elevator begins its ascent. Tony rocks back and forth on his heels, drumming his fingers against the wall behind him, his anxiety rising with every floor the elevator passes.

And then he’s at the top and the doors are opening, depositing him into the brightly lit living room. He wanders into the room, running a hand over the back of the sofa, feeling a little like an intruder in his own home. Pepper’s brought in some of the art pieces that had been collecting dust in storage, paintings Tony knows he owned but never even laid eyes on before. There’s a new coffee table and bookshelves, but she’s kept the velvet sofa that had tagged along with Tony into their marriage, the one he had insisted on keeping and she’d always claimed to find hideously ugly. He smiles when he sees it, some of the anxious twisting in his gut quieted by this evidence of sentimentality.

He crosses the room over to the wide archway on the other side that leads into the kitchen, his breath catching as he looks beyond it.

Pepper is standing beside the fridge, turned partly away from him, holding a coffee cup in one hand, her attention focused on the phone held in her other. The last five years have been kind to her, because from what Tony can see, she looks exactly the same as he remembers.

He clears his throat and knocks softly on the wall to get her attention. “Honey, I’m home.”

Pepper startles, whipping around. She drops both her phone and her cup of coffee, and then she _screams._

“Oh, shit,” Tony says, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. “Pep, honey, I didn’t mean to—”

The rest of his sentence is cut off as a heavy body tackles him from behind.

“Get down, asshole,” a gruff voice snarls in his ear while an arm tightens around his throat.

“Hey, Hap,” Tony wheezes out. “Nice to see you again, buddy.”

“Shut up,” Happy growls, throttling Tony even harder. “Pepper—call Fury. Tell him we got another Skrull.”

He turns his attention back to Tony, wrenching one of Tony’s arms up towards his shoulder blades. “How the hell did you get in here?”

“You kept the same security code from five years back,” Tony gasps out. “As head of security, you really should know you’re supposed to change that every few months. That’s like Security One-Oh—”

Happy cuts him off again by crushing his windpipe. “Pepper, go downstairs. Call Fury.”

Pepper seems to finally come out of her frozen state of shock. She slowly kneels to pick up her phone, never taking her eyes off of Tony.

“Pepper, honey,” Tony tries again, wheezing past Happy’s stranglehold. “You gotta believe me—”

“Mom?” a voice asks behind them. A dark-haired girl in a grey school jumper wanders across the room to stand beside Pepper, frowning at the chaotic scene unfolding on the kitchen floor. “What’s happening? Who’s that?"

Happy squeezes Tony’s neck even harder, but Tony doesn’t even register it, because that’s his little girl standing right there—that’s his Morgan. She’s not the little apple-cheeked four-year-old he remembers, but it doesn’t matter. A hundred years could have passed, but she’d still be his girl. Even if nothing else goes right with this screwy resurrection business, he thinks it will all still be worth it, just for this chance to see her again.

Tony smiles at her, tears shimmering in his eyes. “Hey, Morgoona. It’s me—it’s Dad. God, you got tall. Must be all those crickets we fed you.”

Morgan continues to frown at him, her lips turned down in a dubious pout, leaning into her mother’s side. But something shifts in Pepper’s expression.

“Happy, let him up,” she says in an urgent, strained tone.

“Let him up?” Happy repeats, incredulous. “Pepper—”

“Just let him up,” Pepper says again, her voice breaking as she gathers Morgan against her, wrapping her arms around the girl’s shoulders.

Happy reluctantly releases Tony, abandoning him to go and stand beside Pepper and Morgan.

Tony climbs clumsily to his feet, coughing and rubbing his throat. He looks at the three of them standing together in a huddle, their expressions wary—except for Pepper, who is looking back at him with a kind of wounded hope in her eyes, tears sparkling in her eyelashes.

Tony coughs again. “Hell of a homecoming greeting, Happy, thanks for that.”

Happy responds with a suspicious glower, putting a protective arm around Pepper’s shoulders, and Tony notices the glint of a gold ring on his left hand.

Tony feels his heart break in two.

Still, it’s not like this exact scenario wasn’t lurking, fanged and insidious, in the back of his mind almost since the very second he’d opened his eyes in the wizard’s lair. The widowed wife seeking solace in the arms of her deceased husband’s friend. It’s almost a cliche.

Tony clears his throat, soldiering on. “Hap. Pep. Morgan, darling. Lovely to see you all again. And I just wanna say—I’m not mad.”

Happy and Pepper exchange looks of confusion.

“You’re not mad?” Pepper questions.

“No. In fact, I want to thank you, Happy. For stepping in, taking care of my family. You’re a true friend. I’m really…happy for you both.”

Understanding dawns on both Happy’s and Pepper’s faces. Happy snatches his arm away from Pepper like he’s been scalded.

“Tony, I didn’t remarry,” Pepper says.

Tony blinks at her. “No?”

She shakes her head. “No. Not to Happy and not to anyone else.”

“Oh,” Tony says, which really fails to fully convey the true depth of his relief. He looks over at Happy, gesturing towards the ring on his finger. “So who’s the lucky lady, then?”

Happy gets a little red, shuffling back and forth on his feet. “I, uh…May Parker.”

“May Parker? _May Parker?_ I die, and you go and marry _my_ gorgeous Italian baby mama?” Tony says, jabbing a finger at him. “You traitorous son of a bitch. How _dare_ you?”

“Oh my god, it really is you,” Pepper says with a teary little sound that’s somewhere between a laugh and a sob, blotting at her eyes with the backs of her fingers. “Oh, Tony!”

“What is going on?” Morgan pipes up again, brows drawn together. “Is that really Dad?”

“It’s me. It’s really me,” Tony replies. “I’m here—alive. I’d explain the how of it all, but the Bleeker Street magician told me I was too stupid to grasp the ins-and-outs. Honestly, I don’t think that pompous blowhard really knew either. Wouldn’t surprise me if he was just trying to save face. But none of that matters, really. I’m here now.”

He sniffs, looking over the three of them again.

“So. What’d I miss?” he asks.

***

Tony has missed a lot, apparently.

While Pepper fixes Morgan an after-school snack in the kitchen, Tony sits on his ugly velvet sofa in the living room and listens while Happy fills him in on five years worth of pertinent information, assisted by Rhodey, who’d been refreshingly unperturbed by the news that Tony had somehow been resurrected from the dead.

(“Man, I’ve seen a lot weirder shit than this over the last decade, and if anyone’s too stubborn and arrogant to stay dead, it’s you. This feels like any other Friday,” Rhodey had told Tony when he’d arrived, but the embrace he’d wrapped Tony in was just a little too tight and a little too long for Tony to completely buy the performance.)

“So, hold on,” Tony interrupts them, while they’re in the middle of explaining the years-long secret invasion by a race of alien shapeshifters who’d infiltrated the planet. “You’re saying Fury was being impersonated by one of these—what’d you call them? Skurls?”

“Skrulls,” Rhodey corrects. “And yes, but only after you’d died, and he was one of the good ones.”

“How’d you know the good ones from the bad ones?”

“Well, if they tried to kill you, they were one of the bad ones,” Rhodey explains. “Pretty straightforward, really.”

“There were occasional mix-ups,” Happy adds fairly. “Danvers assures us we got ‘em all cleared out, but who can really be sure. Everyone’s still a little paranoid.”

“Yeah, I got that impression,” Tony says, rubbing his sore neck. He sits back on the sofa, shaking his head at them. “Damn. I die, and you guys go on and have all this fun without me. Any other near-apocalyptic threats you haven’t told me about?”

Rhodey shrugs. “That about sums up the big stuff. Rest of it has mostly been dealing with world-wide organized crime syndicates. Some peace-keeping missions. Nothing terribly unusual.”

“Really?” Tony presses. “You wouldn’t know anything about any…sketchy manipulation of reality that would explain the sudden re-existence of yours truly?”

Happy and Rhodey exchange a brief look.

“Tangentially,” Rhodey finally answers cautiously. “You can try asking Pete about it. He might know something.”

Tony frowns. “The kid? How’s he involved?”

Rhodey looks at Happy again.

“All I know is, the FBI showed up at his place not too long ago asking questions,” Happy reluctantly replies.

Tony’s eyebrows jump towards his hairline. “The FBI?”

“Yeah. They were asking about some research paper he’d written for school...something about—quantum leaping, or parallel universes, or—I dunno,” Happy says. “It’s all a bunch of mumbo-jumbo mad science stuff to me. You’ll have to ask him about it.”

“Huh,” Tony says. He’s going to probe a little further, but he’s interrupted by Morgan stepping into the room.

She walks over and sits down on top of the coffee table in front of him, crossing her arms over her chest and scrutinizing him.

“Hi, kiddo,” Tony greets her. He desperately wants to reach for her, hold her in his arms and never let her go, but she’s still looking skeptical so he fights back the urge.

“Hi,” she says, cocking her head. “Mom says you’re my dad. But my dad died a long time ago.”

“I know. It’s—confusing. I can’t explain it. Not yet, I’m still trying to piece it all together,” Tony says. “But I am your dad.”

Morgan purses her lips, doubtful. “Are you gonna stay here now?”

“I don’t know,” Tony replies, looking past her at Pepper, who has come to stand in the archway between the rooms. “You’ll have to ask Mom.”

“Morgan, sweetheart, why don’t you go with Happy and James and get some dinner for us all,” Pepper says, clasping her hands in front of her. “Anything you like.”

“Alright,” Morgan says brightly, hopping up and going to seize Happy’s and Rhodey’s hands. She hauls them off the couch and runs in front of them to the elevator, turning to wave goodbye as the doors close.

Once they’ve left, a heavy moment of silence descends over the apartment. Pepper stands in the archway, clasping and unclasping her hands, her eyes shining as she looks at Tony.

“Pepper...I’m sorry,” Tony says finally. “I’m so sorry.”

“For what?”

“For...leaving you and Morgan,” Tony says thickly. He offers her a little smile. “You think I’m the first guy to feel guilty for dying?”

Pepper smiles back. “Five years ago, maybe you would have been. I think you could find some others now who’d know where you’re coming from.”

“You’re right. This whole resurrection thing isn’t exactly special anymore.”

“I didn’t say that. This feels pretty extraordinary to me,” Pepper replies, before crossing over to Tony. She gently takes his head in her hands and tilts it up, her eyes searching his face.

“There’s a part of me that still thinks this is a dream,” she murmurs. “I’m scared I’ll wake up, and you’ll be gone again.”

“It’s not a dream,” Tony assures her, turning his head to kiss her palm. “It’s absolutely bonkers, but it’s real. I’m real.”

Pepper gives a teary little laugh, stroking her thumbs over his cheekbones. “It’s all a little overwhelming, if I’m honest. Very overwhelming.”

Tony kisses her other palm. “I know. Believe me, I do.”

Pepper smiles, her eyes still glistening, and then her expression grows more somber. “Morgan isn’t going to understand right away. She knows you, but she doesn’t...know you. She’s going to need a little time, I think.”

“Of course,” Tony says, shifting in his seat. “Yeah, I get it. It’s fine. It’ll be fine, Pep. I’ll win her over. I know I can.”

Pepper nods. She wets her lips, then adds, “I’m going to need a little time, too. I mourned for you for a long time, Tony—I don’t think I’ll ever get over losing you, not really. But I had a little daughter who needed me. I had to...move on, for her. So I’m going to need some time.”

“I understand,” Tony says, and he does, he really does, even though it carves his chest right open. “Do you want—I could stay somewhere else. We can take this as slow as you need to. Whatever you need from me, whatever you’re willing to take, I’ll give it to you.”

But Pepper shakes her head. “No, stay here. Take a guest room, for now. But we should be together. Morgan should see us together.”

She strokes her thumbs over his cheeks again.

“I love you, Tony,” she murmurs, the tears finally spilling over and running down her cheeks. “I never stopped loving you. But I need some time.”

“Anything, honey,” he says, pressing her fingers to his lips. “I’ll give you anything.”

***

And for a week, he devotes himself to doing just that.

It’s simultaneously the best and most frustrating week of his (new) life. He and Pepper agree that for Morgan’s sake, it’s best to keep to as regular a schedule as possible, which means Tony spends a lot of time puttering around alone in a home that no longer quite feels like his own while Pepper spends the day attending various board meetings and events, and Morgan goes to school.

But when Morgan comes home in the afternoon…Tony feels like he’s been given the greatest gift ever, this chance to be a part of her life again. They spend a lot of time exploring the park together, just like Tony had once fantasized about before reality had gone to hell. The anonymity death granted to him makes these outings even more enjoyable, allowing him to feel almost like an average dad enjoying an afternoon out with his daughter, free from paparazzi and autograph hounds and all the other annoyances that come with being a highly recognizable public figure. It’s perfect, really.

Except that Morgan has remained resolutely skeptical to the idea that he is, in fact, her long dead father returned to life.

It takes a lot of effort on his part to hide that her skepticism feels like having a knife repeatedly stabbed straight into his heart. After all, it’s not surprising that she wouldn’t remember him. And it could be worse—Morgan has shown zero signs of resentment or hostility towards this new upheaval in her life. Instead, she seems perfectly pleased to have this adult around who gives her his undivided attention and goes along with whatever whims strike her fancy.

She just flat-out refuses to call him dad.

_Baby steps,_ Tony constantly reminds himself, even as the knife twists in his heart. Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all.

So he spends the week taking her to the park and making her after-school peanut butter sandwiches. He sings Disney karaoke songs until he’s hoarse. He lets her paint his nails in putrescent shades of neon polish while she chatters about some cartoon or game Tony has never heard of.

They sit together and watch an enormous number of YouTube videos on Morgan’s tablet, the majority of which make Tony feel old and out-of-touch and a little cranky. But today, Morgan is all about watching Spider-Man videos, and Tony is happy to indulge her.

“You like Spider-Man?” he asks.

“Oh, yeah, he’s my favorite. He’s got a cool suit and he tells funny jokes and he can do backflips. He’s the coolest.”

“Cooler than Iron Man?”

“Yeah, definitely.”

“Mm,” Tony hums, scrunching his nose. “Alright—I’ll accept that. It hurts, but I’ll accept it.”

The kid’s wall-crawling alter ego has become something of a beloved New York City icon in the years following Tony’s death, and there’s no shortage of videos to choose from with loud titles like _Spider-Man’s Top 10 Sickest Stunts_ and _Spider-Man EXTREME Rescues._

“This one’s my favorite,” Morgan tells Tony, tapping to play a compilation video entitled _Spider-Man Falling into Dumpsters (ORIGINAL UPLOAD!!!!)._

“You’re a little scary, you know that?” Tony says. “Do you know what the word _sadist_ means?”

Morgan rolls her eyes. “He’s not hurt. It’s funny. Just watch it.”

“Okay, that was pretty funny,” Tony admits after they view the video. “Are there more like that?”

“Yeah, here’s one of him smashing into walls,” Morgan says gleefully.

(Later, when he’s alone, Tony will attempt to watch another video called _Spider-Man’s Most Gruesome Beatdowns,_ because apparently Tony’s need to self-flagellate with guilt has also survived death. He’ll get a third of the way through it before losing his nerve and quickly switching to _Spider-Man rescues KITTENS._ )

Tony feels an overwhelming sense of pride watching all of it, even the videos of Spider-Man brutally eating pavement or getting his clock cleaned, because the kid unfailingly pops right back up again every single time he gets knocked down. It’s the same scrappy never-quit can-do-ness that Tony had admired and feared in equal measure all those years ago, when Peter had still been a wet-behind-the-ears greenhorn, and Tony’s glad to see the kid hasn’t lost that spunk even as he’s matured into a competent, capable hero in his own right.

“You know I’m buddies with Spider-Man, right?” Tony asks Morgan, while they watch a video of Spider-Man wrestling what looks like a giant lizard in a subway tunnel. “I taught him everything he knows. _Everything._ He’s only cool because of me.”

Morgan shoots him another dubious look. “Uncle Happy says my dad trained Spider-Man and made some of his suits and stuff. He made Spider-Man an Avenger.”

Tony lets out a slow breath, feeling that knife twist again. “Yeah. Well—he’s not wrong.”

_Baby steps,_ he reminds himself, though at times like this it feels a bit like he’s walking backwards.

***

The following morning after he sees Morgan off to school, Tony heads to the closest subway station, because all these hours spent watching Spider-Man videos have been a constant reminder that this big surprise family reunion is still missing a major element.

He’s had Happy drive him over to Peter’s apartment building twice in the past week, only to be disappointed both times when the kid wasn’t home. Today, though, he’s decided to join the rabble riding public transit, partially for the novelty and partially because the fact that he’s still a dead guy without a driver’s license limits his transportation options, and Happy is currently otherwise occupied.

He stands in front of one of the MetroCard vending machines, frowning at the machine’s screen and breathing in diesel fumes while a growing line of irate commuters forms behind him.

“Tourist or transplant?” the young woman in line behind him finally asks.

He turns, blinking at her. “Uh, transplant. Sort of. I used to live here, years ago, and I…recently returned.”

The woman gives him an understanding smile. “I moved here from North Carolina last year. You want a single ride, seven-day, or a monthly?”

“Better go with monthly. I’m a temporarily embarrassed billionaire. I’m stuck with public transit until I sort that out. Might be a while.”

“Yeah, aren’t we all?” the woman says dryly. She reaches past him, tapping on the screen. A card slides out of a slot on the machine, and she takes it and hands it to him.

“Thanks,” Tony says.

“Good luck,” the woman replies, flashing a peace sign.

Her well-wishing mostly succeeds. Tony makes the rest of his journey without incident, save for briefly getting on the wrong platform while transferring trains. No one else pays him any attention as he makes his way across town, which is still slightly surreal in a exhilarating, freeing way.

The enchantment wears off a bit when he reaches his final destination. The building where young Mr. Parker is currently residing is decidedly not a place that could be called “charming” or “stately.” It could possibly be referred to as “old fashioned,” but only if one meant that as a tongue-in-cheek euphemism for “decrepit.”

But Tony is not in the mood for cutesy wordplay as he makes his way up to the kid’s twelfth-floor apartment via a dimly lit, dirty stairwell after discovering that the one elevator in the building is out-of-order. He lost his jovial attitude somewhere around the seventh flight of stairs. He supposes he should be grateful that his resurrected body is blessed with full-lung capacity and a strong heart, but his ability to be gracious died somewhere around the seventh floor, too.

He finally makes it, wheezing and puffing, to the floor Peter lives on, and walks down a long narrow hallway strewn with cigarette butts and carpet stains to the apartment door he’s seeking.

He stops in front of it, pausing to catch his breath. Then he knocks and waits, crossing his fingers behind his back and hoping with every exhausted fiber of his being that the grueling climb up all those stairs hadn’t been a futile venture. He smiles to himself when he hears faint sounds of movement coming from the other side of the thin door.

After a minute, there’s the noise of a lock being fumbled with, and then the door opens and there’s Peter, looking like he’s just rolled out of bed, his hair a mess of untamed curls. He blinks groggily at Tony for a moment, frowning. Then his face goes very, very white.

“Boo,” Tony says.

Peter slams the door shut so hard one of the hinges comes loose from the wall.

Tony waits a few seconds, and then knocks again.

The door reopens, and Peter reappears looking resigned instead of stricken this time.

“Okay, can we just get straight to the punching? ‘Cause I have to be at work in a couple of hours and if I’m late again my boss is gonna fire me,” he says, sounding completely exhausted. “Also? This...body you went with? Low blow, dude. Really low blow.”

“I’m not a Skrull or whatever the hell they’re called,” Tony says quickly. “It’s me, kid. It’s really me. It’s Tony.”

Peter looks at him, his expression flat. “Wow, you seriously are an asshole. I gotta say, this feels kinda personal. Did I get your mother sent to intergalactic space jail or something?”

“When you were sixteen, you stayed over at my place one weekend, and I had the brilliant idea of letting you come down and shoot photon beams with me in my garage,” Tony tells him. “And I accidentally broke your nose. You had school pictures taken the next day, and you looked like a raccoon. May tried to break _my_ nose in retaliation. You’d eat scrambled eggs topped with peanut butter like a monster, and I’d threaten to kick you out. You used to draw these funny little doodles of Happy on Post It notes. I’d find them stuck around the lab, and I’d collect them after you went home. I didn’t even really know why, until I had Morgan. A lotta stuff made sense after that, but by then it was too late, and I can’t tell you how much I regretted that. How much I still regret it. I kept all those Post It doodles in a box—I kept them, even after I lost you. I don’t know where they are now, but I hope Pepper put them somewhere safe, because they’re more precious than gold to me.”

Peter continues to stare at him, but there’s something fractured and raw in his expression now and his eyes are shining.

Then he slams the door in Tony’s face again.

Tony waits another few seconds, then knocks. The door reopens, and Peter reappears a third time, looking contrite now.

“Hi, hello, I’m so very sorry...but I think there’s a gas leak in my apartment,” Peter mumbles, staring resolutely at the dirty carpet between Tony’s feet. “Or maybe...I have a bad fever or…or, uh…a concussion or something—”

“Pete,” Tony gently interjects. “Why don’t you invite me in?”

Peter drags his gaze back up to Tony’s face, nodding.

“Yeah, yeah—come in,” he says, and then his face crumples, tears running down his cheeks. He starts to close the door again, but Tony puts an arm out and catches it.

“You just invited me in, remember?” 

“Oh, sorry,” Peter chokes out, opening the door wider and motioning to Tony to come inside. “I’m really sorry. I don’t know why I keep doing that. Come in—just—would you please excuse me for a sec?”

He doesn’t wait for Tony to answer, turning on his heel and sprinting towards a door that Tony assumes leads to the bathroom, shutting himself inside.

Tony takes a self-guided tour of the apartment while he waits for the kid to collect himself. It doesn’t take long—the entire apartment is about the size of one of Tony’s walk-in closets. There’s a beat up futon pushed against one wall, and an equally battered desk pushed against another. A Spider-Man suit is draped over the desk chair, but it isn’t one that Tony’s familiar with.

He picks it up to examine it closer, humming to himself, impressed with the design and craftsmanship. He runs his fingers over the material, finding patches here and there where the suit has been mended with varying degrees of haste and effort.

He sets it back down and goes to investigate the tiny kitchenette, where he finds a troubling lack of even the most basic of pantry staples, and an even more troubling quantity of empty fifths of bottom-shelf vodka littering the cramped countertop alongside a large collection of orange bottles of prescription painkillers.

He’s taking a cautious peek into the mini fridge when Peter emerges from the bathroom, the kid’s eyes still red-rimmed but overall looking mostly composed.

For a very long moment, they just stand at either end of the room and stare at each other, the same look of cautious wonderment mirrored on each other’s faces. The last time Tony had seen Peter, the kid had been dead for five years. And now they’re reliving that moment, only in reverse.

It’s not quite the same, though. The kid Tony had brought back five years earlier isn’t much of a kid anymore, for one thing. He’s a little taller now, and he’s filled out a bit, gotten broader through the chest and shoulders. There’s a patchy shadow darkening his jaw that suggests he finally has to shave more than once a week these days, and the angles of his face are sharper and more mature, his nose a little more crooked like he’s broken it a few dozen more times.

Tony finds himself blinking back tears as he looks at him, a tangled rush of emotions—love and grief and painfully sweet gratitude—tying a knot in his chest.

“Is this place illegally subdivided?” he finally asks.

Peter nods, sniffing. “Probably.”

“There is no food in this entire apartment, save for an expired carton of eggs,” Tony continues.

“Yeah,” Peter confirms, wiping his nose with his sleeve.

Tony picks up one of the pill bottles, rattling it at him. “You know you’re not supposed to mix these with alcohol, right?”

Peter nods again. “Yes, sir. I know.”

Tony crosses the room, eyeing him. “If I hug you, are you going to start crying again?”

“No,” Peter says, before promptly bursting into tears the second Tony embraces him.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Peter,” Tony sighs, holding him tighter and gently swaying him back and forth while the kid takes damp, shuddering breaths in the space between Tony’s neck and shoulder, wetting the collar of his shirt.

“So,” Tony says, when Peter has finally calmed down again. “Uncle Happy. How’s that going?”

Peter actually laughs then, slightly hysterical sounding, but it takes the edge off. “It’s good. They take care of each other, you know? It’s a real weight off my shoulders.”

“That’s good. I like your new suit, by the way,” Tony says, gesturing to the Spider-Man suit draped over the desk chair. “You made that?”

“Yeah, thanks. The old one got blown up. I wasn’t wearing it when it was, don’t worry.”

“That’s good,” Tony says again. “The not being in the suit when it blew up part, I mean.”

“Yeah,” Peter says with another little laugh, crossing his arms over his chest and hugging himself.

There’s a beat of awkward silence. Tony clears his throat, drumming his fingers against his thigh.

“Happy says you’re at Columbia now,” he says, when the silence drags on.

“Yeah. Yeah, I got a full-ride. I’m studying chemical engineering,” Peter says. “Sorry. I know you wanted me to go to MIT.”

“Hey, don’t apologize. Columbia’s a great school,” Tony says. “Just not as great as MIT, and I’ll never let you forget that.”

Peter offers an apologetic smile, his eyes shining again. “I did apply to MIT like you wanted me to, and I got in. But, uh...I went to visit the campus, and there were all these posters of you everywhere, and buildings that had been named after you, and I just...I couldn’t do it.”

“I’m sorry,” Tony says, feeling a deep pang of guilt. “I didn’t mean to ruin that for you.”

“No—no, it’s fine. I really love Columbia. It’s been great,” Peter assures him. He looks at Tony, taking a shaky breath. “Sorry—but this is...a _lot._ I watched you...I went to your _funeral._ ”

“Yeah, it’s pretty wild,” Tony agrees, sitting down on the futon. “You got any tips for getting back into the swing of things after being dead for five years?”

“Uh…no. Not really,” Peter says, looking contrite again as he sits down next to Tony. “You just…sort of do it? I, uh…I tried to take a vacation when I got back. Went to Europe with my classmates.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Tony says brightly. “Good for you. Bet that was a lot of fun.”

Peter grimaces. “It was…terrible, actually. Just…so bad. There was this guy—Quentin Beck, he used to work for you—and he was using drones to make these elaborate illusions of these creatures to stage attacks and stuff, and I was real stupid and handed over EDITH to him—I got it back, don’t worry—but first he tried to kill me, and kill my friends, and like, a bunch of other people. I took him down, but then he revealed my identity on TV and blamed the attacks on me, and that was...a whole big thing. So. Yeah. Not a great summer. Not a great year, really.”

“Oh,” Tony says, which really fails to express the true depth of the crushing guilt he’s feeling at this moment.

“But then it turned out that the whole planet had been infiltrated by these alien shapeshifters called Skrulls,” Peter continues, “and they were impersonating people—kinda like that old movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? And it was really fucked up and confusing, and it turned out my girlfriend was one of them, which was... _violating._ But anyway, for a while there were like five or six Spider-Men running around at the same time, so the whole identity reveal thing kinda blew over and people forgot about it. So. Silver lining, I guess.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Tony says, reaching out to put a hand on Peter’s shoulder.

Peter looks at the hand on his shoulder, his eyes going glossy again. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m rambling and dumping all this on you, and you’ve been _dead_ and now you’re _here,_ and to be completely honest, I’m kinda seriously freaking the fuck out right now.”

“To be completely honest with you? I’m freaking out a little, too,” Tony says, squeezing his shoulder. “But I’m the real deal.”

“I’m just—I mean— _how?_ ” Peter asks, his eyes pleading.

“That’s an excellent question,” Tony replies. “I was sorta hoping you could help fill in the blanks for me.”

Peter frowns. “Me?”

“Yeah, Rhodey and Happy mentioned that—”

Something runs over the top of Tony’s foot, interrupting him. He looks down just in time to see a little brown furry thing dart under the desk. He looks back up at Peter, sighing. “Tell me I did not just see a rodent run across my foot.”

“That’s just Harold.”

“You named your vermin? You named your vermin after Happy? Why am I asking—of course you did,” Tony says, rubbing at his forehead. “You’re not supposed to name vermin. You’re supposed to exterminate it.”

“I’m not gonna kill Harold,” Peter says, aghast.

Tony leans forward and smushes Peter’s cheeks between his hands, looking deep into his eyes.

“I did not die so that you could live in a dilapidated shoebox with a _rat,_ ” he tells him.

“He’s a gerbil,” Peter corrects. “He was a Hanukkah present from Morgan. She was worried I would get lonely living here by myself. Only I’m a terrible gerbil dad and I accidentally left the cage door open last week, and he escaped. I haven’t been able to catch him, so I’ve just been leaving food and water out and letting him live free-range.”

Tony’s horror is slightly mitigated with this new information. A loose gerbil seems like a very minor problem in comparison to everything else that’s going on here.

“Christ, you kids,” he says with a kind of disgusted affection. “Alright. We won’t kill Harold. But there are going to be changes around here, you understand? The sheriff’s back in town.”

“I’m really glad you’re back, Mr. Stark,” Peter says earnestly. “I’m really, really glad.”

“Me too, kid,” Tony says, patting Peter’s cheek. “Me too.”

***

“Okay, you remember how I said I wasn’t mad that day I came back? Well, I take it back. I’m a little mad,” Tony says, drumming his fingers on the leather of the carseat. He’s had Happy drive over to pick him up from Peter’s apartment, having decided that the charm of NYC public transportation can really only be enjoyed once.

“About what?” Happy asks warily, glancing over his shoulder at Tony in the backseat.

“The _kid,_ Happy,” Tony snaps. “I mean, why is he living like… _that?_ ”

“Like what? Like a broke college student living in New York City?”

Tony frowns. “Broke? What do you mean, _broke?_ I set up a college fund for him. I tripled-checked it with the lawyers—that thing should have been airtight.”

“And it was,” Happy confirms patiently. “And Pepper and I made sure he got it, just like I promised I would in case you…you know— _died._ And then he gave it away.”

Tony’s eyebrows shoot up. “He gave it away?”

“He gave it away. When you guys brought everyone back…well, to put it bluntly, it was a big fucking mess. There were four million displaced people here in the city alone. Rent tripled overnight, the courts were flooded with lawsuits over home ownership,” Happy explains. “Your charities helped out, of course, and Pete wanted to help, too. So—he donated his college fund to a homeless shelter.”

“The _whole_ thing?”

“The whole thing. He got a scholarship to Columbia, and he felt like he could get by on his own.”

Tony isn’t sure if he’s proud or annoyed. “Did you at least try to talk some sense into him? That apartment he’s renting is a human rights violation.”

“Of course I did. But he’s not sixteen anymore, Tony,” Happy reminds him with an uncharacteristic gentleness. “And it was his money, to do with as he pleased. You know how he is—he always feels like he has to help, even if it’s not in his best interest.” He shoots Tony another look. “A lot like someone else I know.”

_And the drinking and the pills?_ he wants to ask. _Does that sound like someone else you know, too?_ But he knows if he says it aloud he won’t be able to keep the devastation out of his voice, and he can’t bring himself to speak it—not when everything still feels so fragile.

“Anyway, he’s getting on fine,” Happy continues. “He had a rough couple of years there, with the whole Beck business and then the Skrulls and getting banged up bad here and there, but he’s taking care of things. That kid works his ass off. He’s everything you’d hope he’d become and more.”

“Why, Happy, you sound like a proud father,” Tony teases with a pleased smile—and he is pleased, really, despite the slightly bitter aftertaste that leaves in his mouth, the little coil of envy that twists in the pit of his stomach.

Happy shifts around, clearing his throat. “Well. You know…I never had kids of my own. Never wanted any, really, until…He’s just a real good kid, that’s all. So. You know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Tony says, leaning forward and giving Happy’s elbow a little squeeze.

Happy clears his throat again, before continuing. “Anyway. I know you’re not impressed with his place, but Christ, it’s a palace compared to the shit-hole where I was living when I was his age.”

“You mean your mom’s basement?”

Happy flips him the bird, grinning. “God, it’s good to have you back, boss. But take my advice—don’t go trying to fix everyone else’s crap. It’s endless. You’ve more than earned a nice retirement.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Happy,” Tony says, drumming his fingers on the carseat again.

***

Much later that night, Pepper finds him in the room that had once been his office, wiring a little automatic sliding door onto a small acrylic box.

“You’ve barely been back a week, and you’re already down here building things,” Pepper says with a kind of wistful fondness. “I honestly can’t decide how I feel about that.”

She picks up the box from the desk, examining it. “Although as far as your usual construction projects go, this one seems fairly innocuous.”

“It’s a humane gerbil trap,” Tony tells her, sitting back in his chair and rubbing his dry eyes. “I went to see the kid this morning. His rodent’s escaped and is running loose in his apartment.”

“Ah, yes, the beloved Harold,” Pepper says with amusement. “I hope you can recover him safely. Morgan is very fond of him. She demands weekly gerbil updates from Peter.”

“You think if I got her a rat of her own, it’d score me some points with her?” Tony asks. “Or is that shallow bribery?”

Pepper sets the box back down, crossing her arms over her chest. She’s smiling, but her eyes look a little sad. “I know things haven’t gone as smoothly as you hoped with Morgan. But she’s only nine, Tony. She’s spent more than half her life without you. The father she remembers is the man she sees in videos and photographs, the one she hears about in stories. It’s hard for reality to stand up to that. You just need to be patient.”

“I know,” Tony agrees, blinking against the burning that’s suddenly started behind his eyes. “You’re right. Patience is just…not my forte. It’s like…you spend all these years building a ladder so you can reach the top of this pedestal, where everything you’ve ever wanted is waiting for you, and you finally get to it…and then you realize to keep it safe, you have to let it go. And if that wasn’t painful enough, you’re given a second chance at it, only this time you find out your ladder is several rungs too short.”

“You’ve never let an obstacle stop you before,” Pepper says. “I think you’ll overcome this one, too, with a little time and effort.”

Tony looks up, his heart brimming with gratitude for her.

“Go out with me, then,” he says. It feels like throwing a lifeline out into dark water.

Pepper looks a little startled. “Go out? Like on a date?”

“Exactly like a date,” Tony says, taking her hand. “Let me buy you dinner. Or actually, you’ll have to buy me dinner—dead guys don’t have bank accounts. But I’ll show you a real good time. Make you fall in love with me all over again.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Pepper replies, huffing out a little laugh.

“Come on. Humor me,” he says with a teasing smile, but there’s a tiny coil of desperation tightening in the pit of his stomach.

Pepper smiles, her eyes soft. “Alright. Why not? I’m free tomorrow night.”

Tony kisses the back of her hand, relieved to his very bones. “Then it’s a date.”

***

He takes her on that date, and then another, and several more after that—nothing fancy, just dinner and maybe a walk around the neighborhood. It feels right, comfortable—like slipping into a pair of your favorite slippers. When they’re alone together at a table in one of their favorite restaurants, it feels like they’ve never been apart.

“You know these dates are gonna eventually get picked up by the gossip outlets,” Tony tells her one night over oysters and champagne.

Pepper startles, before smiling. “Oh, no. I honestly didn’t even think about that.”

“Oh, yes. Rumors _will_ swirl. Pepper Potts has a new man. And _my god,_ she has a type. The new model looks just like the old one,” Tony teases. “This current model has some upgrades, though, I’m pleased to say.”

Pepper runs a critical eye over him. “Oh? Because you really do look identical to my old model.”

“Well, you gotta check under the hood. Tony two-point-oh is running on an eight-cylinder engine. Your old piece of junk ran on a four,” Tony says, before dropping his voice to add, “You wanna take it for a test drive?”

“You’re still terrible, I see,” Pepper says, but her lips curve into a smile against the rim of her champagne flute.

The flirting and familiarity are nice, until they return home—and Pepper kisses him, chastely, before heading alone to her bedroom while Tony retreats to the guest bedroom on the other side of the apartment, where he paces around in the darkness for hours on end, like a ghost haunting his own home.

***

It continues like that for a few weeks—an excruciating, achingly bittersweet limbo, a constant dance of one step forward, two steps back. Tony will settle into a kind of normal routine one moment, only to slide into a heart-pounding panic the next, where that little voice murmuring in the back of his mind will suddenly start screaming again about what an aberration his existence is.

But then Morgan will come home—a gift, a dream, a blessing.

“Hi, honeybee,” he says to her as she wanders into the kitchen after school and settles down on a stool at the island. He passes a peanut butter sandwich on a plate over to her. “How was school?”

“Good,” Morgan replies with a shrug, which Tony has quickly learned is about as detailed an answer to that particular question as he’s gonna get from a nine-year-old.

“Yeah? What did you learn about today? Nonlinear dynamics? High-energy astrophysics?” Tony asks, because he’s still going to have fun with it.

Morgan gives a tortured sigh. “Mom says my dad was really funny.”

“Mom has a good sense of humor,” Tony replies. “Unlike some little squirts around here.”

Morgan ignores the jab. “Did you catch Harold yet?”

“Not yet, but I have a lot of confidence we’ll nab him soon.”

“You _have_ to catch him,” Morgan insists. “Someone could accidentally smoosh him if he’s running around loose.”

“I’ll get him, relax. I can’t believe there’s this much drama about a pet rat.”

Morgan rolls her eyes. “He’s a _gerbil._ And he’s not just a pet. He’s Peter’s emotional support animal.”

“What’s the difference?”

Morgan gives another tortured sigh around a mouthful of peanut butter sandwich. “My mom also said my dad was really smart.”

“I like to think I had my moments,” Tony says, shrugging. “Sorry I’m such a disappointment in reality. I’ll try to become a cooler dad for you.”

Morgan leans forward on her elbows and peers at Tony through narrowed eyes.

“You do look like my dad, though,” she says. “And you sound like him, too. I’ve watched a lot of his videos, so I know.”

“Well. That’s because I _am_ your dad.”

“Maybe,” Morgan says. “Or maybe you’re _another_ Morgan’s dad.”

Tony looks at her from under raised eyebrows. “Another Morgan’s dad?”

“Yeah,” Morgan says, taking another bite out of her sandwich. “Maybe you’re from another universe, and somehow you ended up here in ours.”

“Hm, an interesting hypothesis,” Tony says, stroking his mustache with a finger. “Are they teaching fourth graders about the multiverse these days?”

“Peter told me about it. He comes over with Uncle Happy and Aunt May for Sunday dinner sometimes. He’s really smart and knows a lot about science, just like my dad did,” Morgan explains. “But he doesn’t talk about science a lot because no one else understands what he’s saying, and he gets so self-conscious when everyone’s looking at him like bugs are coming out of his mouth or something. I like it, though, so I ask him lots of questions, and he knows the answer to like, _everything_ in the whole entire world.”

“Yeah, he’s a real smart cookie,” Tony agrees. “So you think, maybe, that I’m an alternate universe dad?”

“Possibly.”

“Well, how would I know if I was?” Tony asks. He gestures widely to their surroundings. “I mean, this all looks pretty familiar to me.”

Morgan shrugs. “I dunno. Maybe...there’d be little clues. Like...everything could be completely the same, except in this universe you were left-handed. Or my dad got a tattoo in this universe, but you never did in yours. Something like that.”

Tony’s hand moves almost unconsciously to his chest, free of any evidence of the arc reactor. His heart rate has picked up just a tick, beating against an unmarred sternum.

“What if I don’t have the tattoo, but I can remember getting it?” he asks. “How do you explain that?”

Morgan purses her lips as she quietly ponders this question for a few moments, before shrugging.

“Quantum entanglement, perhaps?” she offers. “You absorbed my dad’s memories from this universe somehow when you crossed over.”

Tony nods, clearing his throat and tapping a finger against the countertop. “And, uh...let’s say I am another Morgan’s dad....how would that make you feel?”

Morgan goes quiet again, her expression thoughtful.

“I think I would feel sad,” she says finally.

“Yeah?” Tony asks, his heart breaking again.

“Yeah,” Morgan says, nodding. “‘Cause I know the other Morgan would be really sad to lose her dad.”

She slips off the stool. “I got a ton of homework, so...”

“Right,” Tony says a little huskily. He clears his throat again and waves her off. “Don’t let me stand in the way of your academic progress. You gotta know long division if you want to rule the world someday.”

Morgan offers him a little smile and a wave in return, then turns to leave.

Tony watches her walk out, chewing the inside of his cheek and drumming his fingers on the countertop. Then he pulls up a holographic screen from the counter’s surface.

“Hey, FRI? I need you to help me out with a little homework of my own,” he says, swiping through tabs on the screen.

_“You have something particular in mind, boss?”_

“Yeah. Search for scholarly articles written by Peter B. Parker in the last four years,” Tony says. “Anything to do with, I dunno—quantum mechanics, inflationary cosmology, string theory…the multiverse. Et cetera, et cetera, please and thank you. I’ve got some…pretty serious existential angst I need urgently quelled, so chop-chop, darling.”

_“I think this may be what you’re looking for,”_ the A.I. replies, an article appearing on the holographic screen.

“Yeah, this looks promising,” Tony murmurs, scanning the abstract.

He reads the paper. He reads it again. Then a third time.

“Well, shit,” he says.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A quick warning:** this chapter includes a mention of something that could be read as passive suicidal ideation. It’s very brief (literally a single sentence) and non-detailed, but I want to tag it here just in case.
> 
> A less serious warning: this chapter also contains the most hand-wavy of hand-wavy comic book science. It abuses physics worse than Antman. Forgive me, STEM people.

Tony’s back at Peter’s decrepit apartment building first thing the following morning. The elevator’s still out-of-order, so he makes the climb up the dismal stairwell again, wheezing and feeling lightheaded as he takes the stairs two steps at a time, promising himself that if he gets all this shit figured out that he’s gonna take up jogging again.

He’s still panting and clutching a stitch in his side when he finally reaches Peter’s door. He’s putting up a fist to knock when the door opens and a lanky dark-haired guy steps out, nearly running straight into Tony.

“Oh! Shit, you scared me,” the guy says, pressing a hand to his chest in an exaggerated gesture of surprise. He shuts the door behind himself and then points a finger at Tony as he looks him over, eyes narrowing, like he’s trying to place Tony’s face but can’t quite remember where he’s seen him before.

“You the landlord?” he asks finally, gesturing towards the door’s broken hinge. “Cause you really need to fix this fucking door, man.”

“I’m not the landlord,” Tony replies. “I’m a friend of Peter’s.”

“Uh-huh, sure—a _friend,_ ” the guy says dubiously. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a wallet, thumbing through a thick stack of bills within. “Listen—how much does he owe you? I’ll take care of it.”

“He doesn’t owe me anything. I just came to see him,” Tony says, an edge of frustration creeping into his voice. He tries to step around the guy to get to the door, but the guy moves to block the way.

“Sorry, but I can’t let you just waltz in there,” the guy says, slipping his wallet back into his pocket and pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter instead. “You could be a creep. There was just a guy breaking into apartments in this neighborhood and sucking on people’s toes while they slept. He still hasn’t been apprehended.”

Tony can’t believe he’s having this conversation. “Do I look like a guy who’s gonna break into someone’s apartment to suck their toes?”

The guy shrugs, lighting up a cigarette and taking a drag off of it. He blows smoke into Tony’s face. “Maybe.”

Tony waves a hand in front of his face, glowering at him. “Yeah, well—how do I know you weren’t just in there sucking toes?”

The guy grins, winking. “Maybe I was.”

“Okay,” Tony says, rubbing his forehead and clinging to the last shreds of his patience. “Look—would you please tell Peter that Tony is here and I’d like to talk to him.”

“Tony who? This city’s gotta lot of Tonys.”

“Tony...Potts.”

“Alright, Tony Potts. Stay right here,” the guy says, slipping back into the apartment and closing the door.

He reappears a few moments later, opening the door just wide enough to poke his head out into the hall. “Hey. What cereal did you keep at your place about a decade ago?”

“Excuse me?”

“Look, you gotta answer the question, or Pete’s not gonna let you in,” the guy says. “He’s weird like that. Don’t take it personally—he does this to _everyone,_ constantly. He’s a little—” the guy twirls a finger around next to his temple, eyebrows raised—“fucked in the head.”

“Alright. Alright...Christ,” Tony mutters, rubbing his forehead again and wracking his memory. “Uh, let’s see...Cheerios, probably. Frosted Flakes. And, uh...some high-fiber brand that Peter said tasted like wet cardboard.”

“Got it,” the guy says, shutting the door again.

Tony waits, irritably tapping his foot, until the door opens again, wide this time.

“Okay, Tony Potts—you’ve been granted permission to enter,” the guy says as he steps out and motions towards the apartment with a flourish. “I guess you’re not the toe sucker after all. Or maybe you are, but Pete’s down with it.”

“Great. Appreciate it,” Tony says stiffly.

“No problem. By the way, the Tony Stark beard? Totally lame, man,” the guy replies, giving Tony a lazy salute before walking off down the hall.

Tony shakes his head and steps into Peter’s apartment, his tattered nerves getting further strained when he sees the many empty vodka bottles lying haphazardly on the floor all around the apartment.

“Pete,” he says, walking over to the battered futon and poking at the huddled lump lying under a blanket in its center.

“I’m not home. Leave a message,” replies the lump.

Tony yanks the blanket away from Peter’s face, roughly rubbing his knuckles against Peter’s cheek. “C’mon, kid. Up and at ‘em, sunshine.”

Peter swats at his hand, grimacing. “Why are you here so early?”

“It’s seven. That’s not early,” Tony says, pulling the blanket off the rest of the way. “Lord, it smells like a frat house in here.”

Peter curls into a tighter ball. “Ugh. I used to have nightmares that went like this—you’d break into my apartment and wake me up, only you were a zombie and you were wearing the Iron Man suit, and you’d be firing lasers at me.”

“I didn’t break into your apartment. Your charming companion invited me in.”

Peter frowns, eyes still closed. “Who?”

“The guy with the twenty-thousand-dollar Rolex coming out of your apartment at seven in the morning. You know his name right? He seemed pretty familiar with you. You never struck me as an anonymous hookup kind of person, but I guess a lot could have changed in five years.”

“What?” Peter says, frown deepening. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Peter. Buddy—the guy who was _just_ here in this room with you,” Tony says with a mix of exasperation and genuine concern. “You can remember what cereal you ate at my place when you were sixteen, but you can’t remember a conversation you had three seconds ago? How many concussions have you had in the last five years? He accused me of being your landlord, or a serial toe sucker. I’m not sure which one offends me more.”

“Oh,” Peter says, the confusion clearing from his face. He gingerly pushes himself up into a sitting position, blinking bleary-eyed at Tony. “That’s just my friend Harry.”

“You have _weird_ friends,” Tony says, hooking a finger under Peter’s chin and tilting his face up to examine the dark circles under his eyes. “Good _lord,_ look at your face. You look like you got punched twice by the Hulk.”

“I feel like I got punched twice by the Hulk.”

“Rough night saving the city? Or are you just hungover?” Tony asks flatly.

Peter jerks his head back out of Tony’s grasp, a hurt look flashing briefly across his face before his jaw tightens, his expression turning petulant.

“I don’t get hungover,” he replies with manufactured breeziness. “It’s one of my superpowers.”

“Yeah? Well, aren’t you lucky,” Tony mutters, jamming his hands into his coat pockets where he curls and uncurls them into fists.

“I was up all night cramming for a computational fluid dynamics exam that I gotta take this afternoon, is all. Gotta maintain my three-point-nine GPA. You know—make sure people have a reason to be proud of me,” Peter explains coolly.

Tony looks away from him for a moment, running his tongue across his teeth and jingling the loose change in his pocket. He clears his throat.

“Well, in that case, I’m really glad I stopped by,” he says, forcing brightness into his tone. “You are in _dire_ need of a hearty breakfast. Can’t do computational fluid dynamics on an empty stomach. Come on—my treat. Or Pepper’s, really. As a dead guy, I own nothing—save for a MetroCard.”

“A MetroCard?” Peter asks, frowning again. “Wait—did you ride the _subway_ over here?”

“Yep. I’m one of you disgusting dirty plebes now, which is why I’m taking you to a greasy spoon that caters to broke college students rather than brunch at the Rainbow Room. Hope that’s okay.”

“Are you kidding? Last night for dinner I ate a slice of pizza that someone had left sitting on a bus seat. I’m not picky.”

“Please don’t tell me things like that,” Tony sighs. “Seriously—I just returned from the dead, and you’re trying to put me right back in the ground.” He motions to Peter. “Alright. Let’s get to it. Get cleaned up and dressed so we can go.”

“You know,” he adds later, once they’re sitting in a sticky, warped booth at a cheap cafe around the corner, “if you ever need any kind of help, if you’re…in trouble or…whatever, you can still call me, right?”

Peter looks at him over the top of his menu. “Yeah? Thank you. I’m good, though. I have everything handled.”

“Okay. Yeah, of course you do,” Tony agrees, shifting around in the booth and making the cheap, cracked plastic squeak. “Just—wanted you to be aware of that, is all. That I’m here. Again. To help. With your finances, or…I mean, how are you paying for that…lovely studio apartment and all that cheap booze?”

“I’m sleeping with my best friend’s dad,” Peter says, completely straight-faced. “Rich bigshot. Good looking, for an older guy. Gentle. Gives me a bonus for the _really_ disgusting stuff. It’s easy work. Pays well. I _could_ afford a better apartment, but I blow all my hard-earned dirty cash on meth and betting on underground dog fights.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Alright, smart ass. I get it. You’re good. Just—if you’re ever _not_ good, I want you to know I’m here. That’s all.”

“I know. And I appreciate it, Mr. Stark,” Peter says, more sincerely. “I really am good, though. I know you must have like, a _lot_ going on right now, so please don’t worry about me on top of all that other stuff. I’ve been taking care of myself for a while now just fine.”

“Alright,” Tony reluctantly agrees, chewing the inside of his cheek as he looks across the table at Peter.

The kid’s hands are shaking where he holds the menu—the tiniest, faintest little tremor that probably wouldn’t be noticeable to most people, but Tony’s a recovering addict and those little barely-there signs read like giant red flags waving in the wind to him. He wonders if it’s just alcohol or if it’s the prescription pills, too, and for a moment he can’t breathe past the searing pain that question lances through his heart.

 _Ask, you fucking coward,_ a voice insists in his mind.

“Tell me everything you know about the multiverse,” he says instead.

Peter looks up again, blinking at him. “Uh...okay? Like— _everything_ everything?”

“I read your research paper last night, the one you wrote about parallel branes convergence in hyper-dimensional space,” Tony says. “And I don’t say this lightly, ‘cause I know you’re a real smart kid—but it was, quite frankly, _brilliant._ How on Earth did you come up with that convergence formula? Quantum physics seems a little outside of the typical wheelhouse for a chemical engineering major.”

Peter goes a little pink, ducking his head behind his menu and mumbling something.

Tony cups a hand around his ear, leaning forward. “What was that, mush-mouth?”

“Uh, nothing,” Peter says, lowering the menu but keeping his eyes firmly on it. “If you read the paper then that’s pretty much everything you need to know. The… _how_ of it is…a long story and not important. ”

“I’ve got a lot of time and a lot of intellectual curiosity,” Tony replies, crossing his arms on top of the table and giving Peter a level look. “That’s about all I have right now.”

Peter sags in the booth, sighing. “Okay. I won’t go into graphic details, but I had this… _very_ awkward encounter with a finance major. An, um…” he clears his throat, going pink again, “an _intimate_ encounter, you know, of the…physical variety.”

Tony squints at him. “You’re telling me that you came up with the topic for a groundbreaking research paper on advanced theoretical physics during a bad hookup with a finance major?”

Peter’s flushes even pinker. “Um, yeah. Basically. It was definitely the instigating situation.”

“Well, you know where you went wrong,” Tony says. “I mean, what did you expect from a finance major?”

“Listen, this superhero gig can get really lonely,” Peter replies. “Sometimes I like to have a little human contact that doesn’t involve punching, but I don’t have the time or assets to be real picky about who I get that from, okay? Occasionally, mistakes are made. That’s the crux of this story. Give me a break here.”

“My apologies. Please, continue.”

“So anyway, I’m at this person’s apartment, right? And we’re…you know, getting to know each other…and it’s _not_ going great. And I’m totally agnostic but things are so far off the rails that I’m silently begging God to send an asteroid to hit the parking garage next door or something, just to have an excuse to cut this short—”

“You know you can just change your mind and say no at any time, right?” Tony interrupts. “You can just peace on out of there, pal. You don’t even need to come up with an excuse. Just say sayonara and walk on out.”

“Yeah, I know. But once I commit to something, I really like to see it through to the end, no matter how grueling a task it is,” Peter says. “It’s the reason I’ve sat through every single Minions movie sequel with Morgan, despite dying a little more with each subsequent film.”

“I can’t listen to this. I can’t,” Tony says, holding his hands up in a gesture of complete exasperation. “You’re gonna make me lose my goddamn mind. I mean, Pete, buddy—have some respect for yourself, _please._ ”

“Look, I’m an optimist. I’m always hoping things will turn around for the better,” Peter says. “And anyway, if I had left, I wouldn’t have come up with this idea for my paper or gotten involved in all the crazy shit that followed, so I consider it a worthy sacrifice.”

Tony sighs, rubbing his forehead. “You’re killing me, kid, but okay.”

“Okay,” Peter continues. “So there I am, questioning all my life choices that lead up to this moment, and thinking if I had just done this or that instead, I wouldn’t be in this awkward position—literally and figuratively speaking—and that got me thinking about like, the possibility of alternate realities and stuff, and the probability that in at least _one_ of these theoretical parallel universes, I escape this miserable fate.”

“You’re thinking there’s an alternate universe where you’re not a horny little dumbass.”

“Yes! Exactly. And I’m thinking, wow, I wish I could like, send a message to all the other Peters out there warning them to stay away from finance majors, no matter how appealing you find their Australian accent, because they _will_ convince you to let their weird roommate double team you, and you _will_ have lasting regrets and self-esteem issues,” Peter says, “which of course led me to your quantum realm time machine.”

“Of course,” Tony deadpans. “An obvious leap in logic.”

“Yeah, well, I’d been looking into your time machine because _holy shit,_ you built a _time machine,_ that’s _insane,_ ” Peter gushes. “And SHIELD had pulled most of the files, but FRIDAY still had the early specs, so I could kinda piece it together from there. And your time machine wasn’t really a time machine in the purest sense, right? You weren’t traveling back in our timeline—it wasn’t like, time travel in the sense of Back to the Future or Looper or something.”

“Right. Each jump created an alternate branching timeline.”

“Exactly. So your time machine was more like...a para-time machine. You were creating alternate parallel pasts, and you were able to pull physical objects from those timelines. Which made me think—if the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is true, then you could conceivably travel between already-existing parallel universes using a similar concept. Basically, if you compress time and space right, you could temporarily force two parallel universes together—kinda like smooshing a sandwich down flat,” Peter says, pantomiming the act with his hands. “And if you press it even harder—like say, by harnessing energy from a black hole—”

“Or using an Infinity Stone?” Tony asks, carefully watching the kid’s reaction. “Or perhaps…some kind of reality bending magic?”

Peter hesitates a beat. “Um, yeah, I suppose so—but the point is, you can force them to converge at a particular point, so two parallel universes would occupy the same four-dimensional spacetime manifold, creating an inter-dimensional nexus—like, a portal between realities. So I kinda worked backwards from there, you know, and came up with that convergence formula, and then I wrote that paper.”

Tony sits back. “Well. This story has been both horrifying and intellectually stimulating, thank you.”

“Sure,” Peter says. His phone starts vibrating where he’s set it on the table, and he picks it up, frowning at the screen. “Crap. That’s my boss. He wants me to come in. I can’t say no—he’s a real hard ass. Can we take a raincheck on breakfast? I gotta run home and change.”

“Yeah, alright,” Tony says reluctantly, taking his wallet out and tossing some crisp bills Pepper had given him onto the sticky table top. “I’ll walk you home.”

“So, you don’t happen to know who else might have read this paper of yours?” he asks, wheezing once more from the climb up the stairs, once they’re back at the kid’s shabby apartment.

Peter shrugs as he unlocks the door. “I mean, my professor did…It’s pretty niche. Who else is gonna read it? Besides you, I guess.”

“Just…wondering,” Tony replies as he follows him inside, swallowing down his rising frustration.

Peter walks over and dumps his backpack on top of the futon and then he freezes, his eyes going wide. A gut-punched noise escapes him.

“What’s the matter?” Tony asks.

Peter points towards the floor in the corner of the room, a look of horror on his face. “ _Harold._ ”

Tony comes around to stand beside him. The kid is pointing down at the acrylic gerbil trap Tony had made and given to him. The door to the trap is shut. Lying in a dark stain in front of it is a little headless furry body.

“Oh,” Tony says.

“We _guillotined_ him,” Peter says, clutching his hair. “God, I’m the worst gerbil dad ever. I’ve killed my furry son. Jesus—what am I gonna tell Morgan? She keeps asking about him. I can’t tell her I _killed_ him. I gotta…I gotta…replace him or something. Yeah, that’s it—I’m just gonna skip work, go to the pet store, and get another gerbil. She’ll never know.”

“She will. She’ll figure it out. She’ll be able to tell it’s not the same,” Tony says, sitting down on the futon and leaning his head into his hands.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter asks tentatively, laying a hand on Tony’s shoulder. “It’s just a gerbil. It’s okay.”

Tony lets out a bark of humorless laughter. “No. No, it’s not just a gerbil. It’s…”

He presses a hand to his eyes, sighing, then looks up at Peter. “Morgan thinks I’m from an alternate universe. That I’m…not her actual dad. That I’m an imposter or something. And…I think she might be right.”

A heavy moment of silence follows.

“Oh,” Peter says eventually, sitting down beside Tony. “But…why do you think that? ’Cause you read my paper?”

“That helped convince me. But there’s also this little unexplained issue,” Tony says, unbuttoning his shirt and showing Peter the unblemished skin on his sternum. “Does it look like I once had a gaping hole in my chest? Where’d the scar go?”

“Okay, yeah, that’s…super weird,” Peter reluctantly admits. “But maybe when you came back, you just…respawned in a new body, like in a video game or whatever.”

“I considered that, too, except that when I came back, I had to take a huge piss—like the kind where you pee so much, you actually feel your blood pressure drop a little,” Tony says. “If I had a whole new body, why would I have to take a leak so bad? Wouldn’t that get reset, too?”

“I don’t know,” Peter says, getting up and starting to pace back and forth, “because I don’t understand what happened to bring you back.”

“Yeah, okay—see, I think maybe you _do_ have some idea, because Happy and Rhodey told me the FBI showed up at your door asking about your paper,” Tony says. “And I have to wonder why the fuck the FBI would be interested in something like that if there wasn’t a _hell_ of a lot more to this story.”

“The FBI guy just got dragged in by accident. He was tagging along with an astrophysicist. She was investigating some weird anomalies that happened to cross paths with the FBI dude’s investigation into a murder,” Peter explains. “The _astrophysicist_ was the one who wanted to talk to me about my paper, because she thought it could maybe explain those anomalies, but I was about as useless as the FBI guy, so I took her to someone I thought could actually help her.”

Tony squints at him. “This doesn’t sound real. This sounds like the plot of some absurd comedy caper.”

“I know. But it got a _lot_ weirder. And scary. Definitely more horror movie than comedy caper.”

“I’m assuming this where Strange gets involved,” Tony says. “That’s who you took this astrophysicist to, right? So what happened?”

Peter looks apologetic. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stark, but I can’t tell you.”

Tony blinks at him, raising an eyebrow. “Seriously, kid? I know I died and therefore technically am no longer an Avenger and privy to these sorts of global security issues, but c’mon.”

“No, like—I _physically_ cannot tell you,” Peter clarifies. “Dr. Strange did some kind of magic ritual thing to bind me to eternal silence.”

“He fucking _what?_ ” Tony asks, outraged. “Did that mystical son of a bitch ensorcel you?”

“I mean...yeah, I guess?”

“Was this— _consensual?_ ”

“Uh...kinda?” Peter says. “I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone, and he just...took it a step further.”

Tony only barely resists the urge to yank his own hair out. “What, like a blood oath?”

“ _Exactly_ like a blood oath, actually.”

“Christ almighty,” Tony says, pressing his hands to his temples. “What happens if you try to tell me? Do you...spontaneously combust? Start barking like a dog?”

“No, nothing weird like that,” Peter assures him. “It’s more like...I can think about what happened, and remember it clearly, but as soon as I try to verbalize it or write it down, the words just...won’t come out. Honestly, though? I wasn’t directly involved, and I really don’t understand even like, a quarter of what happened, so the whole magical binding thing is probably overkill.”

“Yeah, I’d agree with that,” Tony says, scrubbing a hand over his face and sighing.

“Why don’t you just go to Dr. Strange and ask him?” Peter suggests.

“Go to Strange?” Tony says, shaking his head. “I can’t go to Strange. He made it sound like my existence here was conditional. If I tell him, hey, Dumbledore, I don’t think I belong here in your precious reality, what are the chances he boots my ass out?”

Peter stops pacing and looks at Tony, his eyes wide. “What do you mean—conditional?”

Tony rubs a hand along his jaw. “When I woke up at his place, he said that I could go on and live my second life—so long as it, and I quote, _didn’t show signs of instability._ I’m guessing that me being an imposter from another dimension could— _possibly_ —be considered a big no-no to our esteemed wizarding doctor friend. So I prefer to keep this between you and me, got it?”

Peter nods, looking overwhelmed again.

“But that’s not the only issue here,” Tony continues, sighing again. “Your convergence formula—these inter-dimensional nexuses you talk about in your paper—you theorize that these portals are temporary...that there would be a rubberband kinda snap-back effect. Reality would course-correct.”

Peter swallows. “Um, yeah. It would take a massive amount of energy to keep them open. There’s probably some kind of decay rate, depending on wave function deconstruction.”

Tony lets out a humorless huff of laughter, staring down at his hands. “Yeah, that’s a bitter pill, huh? So…how long are we thinking we got here?”

Peter shakes his head, shrugging helplessly. “I don’t know. I didn’t try to figure that out. This was just…a dumb thought experiment I came up with to dissociate from my poor life choices. It’s _still_ a dumb thought experiment. I mean, we don’t know for sure that—that you’re from another dimension or whatever. You _could_ be, yeah, but—Mr. Stark, when you came to my place that first time, you knew all that stuff about me,” he says, almost pleadingly, sitting down on the futon again. “How would you know that stuff if this isn’t where you came from?”

Tony throws up his hands, standing up and taking over Peter’s pacing. “Who the hell knows? Maybe in whatever parallel universe I’m from, my Peter also drew Happy doodles on Post Its and ate peanut butter on eggs like a monster.”

“Do you feel like I’m not your Peter?” the kid asks in a small voice.

Tony stops pacing and looks at him, too taken aback by the question to answer it right away.

“It’s the drinking, right? And the pills?” Peter continues, gesturing towards the half-empty bottles on the countertop. “I know you’re disappointed about that. You’re thinking...the Peter you knew wouldn’t be this stupid.”

Tony shakes his head. “No. No, kid, that’s not what I’m thinking.”

“It’s okay if it is. I understand. I don’t like it, either,” Peter says, his eyes shining. “I know you…had a lot of expectations for me, and…I’m sorry if I didn’t live up to them. It really _kills_ me, you know, to think that I’m disappointing you. But a lot happened while you were gone.”

“Okay, so—I’m here now. Let’s talk about it,” Tony offers, sitting down beside him again. “You can talk to me about it. I won’t be disappointed, I promise.”

Peter nods, taking a shaky breath.

“I, uh...I got hurt a couple years back, during the whole Skrull thing. There was this girl...we’d been together for a few years by that point, and I was just… _crazy_ in love with her. I thought she loved me, too, but...I trusted the wrong person. It’s kinda a character flaw of mine,” he says with a brittle smile. “Anyway...I’d been helping Captain Danvers and Rhodey and the rest of the team locate and clear out Skrulls for about six months. And between that and class and work—I felt really guilty about not spending a lot of time with her. So one night, I’m leaving work, and I call her and ask her to meet me for dinner at this Thai place we liked. She’s there waiting for me when I arrive—and so are a bunch of her Skrull buddies. They jump me as soon as I walk in.”

Peter stops a moment, taking another breath. “These Skrulls...they’re strong, Mr. Stark. They’re strong and they’re fast, and there’s a _lot_ of them. And I can’t fight them all by myself. I can’t fight… _her._ So I run, but it’s complete chaos—we’re in this busy part of town and they’re hiding in the crowds, I don’t know who’s a real person and who’s a Skrull, and I end up jumping out of this building to escape. The drop is something like, forty stories. Hit the pavement feet first, which is great if you’re a cat I guess, but pretty awful if you’re a human, even an enhanced one. It completely demolished my lumbar vertebrae, shattered my pelvis and both ankles, just...wrecked me. And then I made it worse, ‘cause I didn’t tell anyone at first, not Happy or May or…I know that sounds stupid, but I didn’t know who I could trust, you understand? After…”

“Jesus,” Tony says, pressing a hand against his eyes. There are tears burning hot behind his eyelids, and he thinks dying hurt less than this.

“My friend Harry eventually came looking for me after I missed class for a couple weeks,” Peter continues. “I lied and told him I got hit by a car, and I didn’t want to go to the ER ‘cause my insurance is so shitty—that much is true, at least. I don’t think he believed me about the car, but he doesn’t ask a lot of questions. He’s good like that. He drove me to the hospital, but by then things had already started to heal wrong. The surgeons tried to fix it, but I dunno, it’s just never been right ever since. And the doctors gave me medication to try to help with the pain, but eventually it stopped working as well as it had, ‘cause I built up a tolerance to it, right? So I had to take more of it, and then more of it, and on and on. But some nights the pain is still… _unbearable._ Like you just wanna crawl out of your skin. Like…like sometimes I wish they had just killed me. My grades got really bad, and I almost lost my scholarship, and I got sick and hurt a lot ‘cause I couldn’t ever sleep. So I started drinking, just to help take the edge off enough so I can get a little sleep. And I know that’s bad, and I don’t like it, but right now it’s like the only thing that’s working for me.”

“Jesus, kid,” Tony says again, dropping his hand and forcing himself to look at Peter. “This is the last thing I wanted for you. I’m sorry, Pete. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Don’t be. It could have been a lot worse,” Peter gently insists. “The doctors said that if I was a regular person, I probably never would have walked again. But I’m okay. I’m doing really good in school again, and I got a decent job, and I can still be Spider-Man—and that’s really the most important thing to me. That’s all that matters. That’s why I’m here. So it’s fine, Mr. Stark.”

“It’s not,” Tony says, leaning over to embrace Peter tightly. “It’s not, but everything’s gonna be okay now. We’re gonna find a way to fix this.”

“Yeah, we will,” Peter agrees, squeezing him back, and Tony can’t tell who is comforting whom.

***

Later that night, Pepper finds Tony down in his old office again, kneeling on the floor digging through a box of dusty documents.

“Where do you keep Peter’s medical records?” Tony asks her, frowning. “FRIDAY can’t find them, and I don’t have any paper copies past two-thousand-twenty-five. Does May have them?”

“Tony, he turned eighteen that year. We haven’t had access to those records since then,” Pepper patiently answers. “HIPAA privacy rules apply to superheroes, too.”

Tony sits back on his heels, running a hand through his hair so that it stands on end and exhaling sharply. “Fuck…I don’t have time for this.”

“Did something happen?” Pepper asks, a furrow of concern appearing between her brows.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s…”

Tony stops and releases another long breath, a painful knot tightening in his chest, before looking up at her again. “If I was, let’s say...a tourist just passing through here, or...a transplant on a short-term work visa...what would you say to that?”

“Hm,” Pepper hums, chewing her lip. “I suppose I would say...that in a way, we’re all tourists here, so we should enjoy our stay while we can, however long that may be. Make a lot of good memories. Try to avoid getting traveler’s diarrhea.”

Tony huffs out a little laugh. “Yeah. You’re right. You always were better at attempting to answer these big, messy philosophical questions. You know how to cut through the bullshit, get right to the crux of the matter.”

Pepper smiles, cocking her head. “Is that what you’re doing down here? Pondering the big philosophical questions?”

“I’m just...trying to figure out how I got here,” Tony says with a half-shrug. “Make sense of it. I thought I knew why I’d been brought back, but…now I feel like I’m not gonna have enough time to put it all right again, so I’m wondering…what exactly the point is?”

“Did you ever think that—maybe—you don’t need to know?” Pepper asks gently. “Maybe you’re just here because...you are?”

“What, you think someone just...negligently left a metaphorical cage door open, and my little mindless rodent ass ran through?” Tony asks. “I just jumped back into existence after being dead for five years?”

“A lot of people came back after being gone for five years,” Pepper points out.

“Yeah, because we _made_ that happen,” Tony says emphatically. “We bent the rules of space and time to get them back. We—made _sacrifices_ for that. That wasn’t collateral damage. These things don’t happen without a reason.”

“I know this is a silly thing for me to say to you of all people, but maybe you shouldn’t dig too deeply there,” Pepper replies, squeezing his hand. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

She presses her other hand to his chest, right over his heart. “And this is a gift, Tony. We should enjoy it, for however long we can.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right,” Tony agrees, covering her hand with his own and giving her a soft smile. “You’re absolutely right. Of course. You’re always right.”

Pepper smiles back, patting his chest before leaning down to kiss his cheek. “It’s late. Don’t stay up all night, fretting and trying to build your problems away.”

“I won’t,” Tony promises, kissing the back of her hand before letting her go.

***

He listens to Pepper’s advice, packing away the documents for the time being and heading upstairs. He walks slowly through the dark, quiet penthouse, running his hand along the back of his ugly velvet sofa again as he wanders through the living room, breathing past the lingering tightness in his chest.

He pauses when he reaches Morgan’s bedroom, peering around the partially opened door to check on her. He’s surprised to find her sitting up in bed, the comforter clutched under her chin as she turns her head to look at him.

“You’re still awake in there?” Tony asks. “It’s late.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“Yeah? Me neither,” Tony says, coming in and sitting down on the edge of the bed. “Something on your mind?”

Morgan shrugs, fiddling with the edge of the comforter. “I was just thinking about stuff. Sometimes my brain doesn’t want to turn off.”

“Mine doesn’t want to turn off sometimes, too. Anything I can do to help?” Tony asks.

Morgan sucks on her lip before gesturing to a book sitting on the bedside table. “I know I’m too old for this, but...will you read me a story?”

Tony smiles at her, the tightness in his chest melting away. “There’s nothing in the whole entire world I’d rather do.”

He leans over and switches the lamp on, and then picks up the book, looking at the cover. “Let’s see what we got here…oh-ho, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. A classic.”

“I’m on chapter three.”

“Alright. Chapter three…” Tony says, flipping open the book and starting to read.

He gets about another chapter in when Morgan suddenly starts to cry, her whole body shaking with sobs.

“Hey, where’d that come from?” Tony asks, setting aside the book. He reaches out to comfort her, gently squeezing her little heaving shoulders. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t want you to go,” she tells him between sobs.

“Go? Where do you think I’m gonna go?”

“Back to your home. To _your_ Morgan. I don’t want you to leave,” Morgan says, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I don’t care if that’s not fair. It’s not fair to me, either.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Tony says, squeezing her shoulders again. “ _You_ are my Morgan. It doesn’t matter where I came from, or what universe this is—you’re my girl, always and forever.”

“But what if they’re looking for you?” Morgan asks, wiping at her eyes. “What if they’re trying to get you back?”

“Well, I’ll just say no thanks, I’m doing great right where I am.”

“Maybe they’ll make you leave,” Morgan insists. “Maybe they’ll say…you don’t belong here so you can’t stay.”

“Who? The multiverse doppelgänger police?” Tony says with a reassuring smile, but that tightness is back in his chest, a coil of painful desperation. He swallows hard, squeezing her shoulders again.

“I can tell you this much—I’m not gonna leave without a fight,” Tony says. He gets to his feet, bending to kiss the top of her head.

Morgan looks up at him, blinking back tears. “What are you gonna do?”

“I’m gonna go figure this thing out,” he tells her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear before heading to the bedroom door. He stops there a moment, looking back at her. “Now go to sleep. You got school in the morning. And whatever happens—I love you, squirt.”

Morgan sniffs, wiping her nose on the back of her hand.

“I know,” she says.

***

Tony doesn’t bother with the subway or calling Happy or an Uber for a ride this time. He drives one of his own cars across town, liberally breaking traffic laws along the way with FRIDAY’s cheerful help, having decided that an existential crisis this large definitely counts as an emergency.

The elevator in Peter’s apartment building is still out-of-order, which Tony has come to realize is probably its permanent state of being. He takes the stairs two at a time again, but the huge rush of adrenaline coursing through his veins combined with the driving force of a kind of fatalistic determination keep him from getting too winded this time.

He’s about to knock on Peter’s apartment door when it opens and once again a tall, dark-haired man steps out, only Tony instantly recognizes this one.

Aside from a few more grey hairs peppering the dark waves at his temples, the Norman Osborn standing in front of Peter’s apartment door looks exactly like the Norman Osborn Tony occasionally had the dismal experience of running into at various tech conferences or charity galas Pepper had made him attend over the years. For a long moment they just stand barely a foot apart in the hallway, blinking at each other in surprise.

“What the fuck are you doing over here?” Tony finally blurts out.

The slick smile Norman offers him is unpleasantly familiar, too, but the recognition only goes one-way, apparently, because Norman looks him over like he’s never seen Tony before in his life.

“I’m sorry—can I help you?” Norman asks. His tone is friendly enough but there’s a hint of steel in his voice that immediately has Tony bristling.

“I don’t know, can _I_ help _you?_ ” Tony shoots back, trying to look beyond the man into the apartment. “Actually, I know you can’t. I’m here to talk to the kid."

Norman pulls the door closed and stands between it and Tony.

“You must be the landlord,” Norman says, still wearing that artificially pleasant smile. He takes out a wallet and pulls out a crisp bundle of hundred dollar bills, offering it to Tony. “Here—that should cover the next few months.”

Tony has to fight back the urge to slap the money out of his hand. “I’m not the fucking landlord, pal. Now get out of the way.”

Norman doesn’t budge. The smile is gone. “No, I don’t think I will. But I think you should leave right now.”

“You think _I_ should leave?” Tony spits out. “Fuck you, buddy. _You_ should leave.”

The door opens behind Norman, and Peter pokes his head out, his expression confused. “What is going on out here—” he starts to ask before he spots Tony, his eyes widening. “Oh shit. What are you doing here again?”

“I’ll deal with your landlord, Peter. Go back inside,” Norman tells him, gently trying to usher Peter back into the apartment.

“He’s not my landlord,” Peter says quickly, darting out to stand between Norman and Tony. “He’s…uhhh…my aunt’s…cousin? Yeah. Cousin…Tony.”

“My sincerest apologies. A case of mistaken identities,” Osborn says smoothly, slick smile back in place as he offers a hand to Tony to shake. “Norman Osborn.”

Tony ignores his hand.

“Charmed,” he replies through tightly clenched teeth.

Peter clears his throat and grabs Tony’s arm, tugging him towards the doorway. “Anyway—thank you so much, Mr. Osborn. I know you’re super busy, I won’t keep you any longer.”

Norman hesitates a moment, looking between Peter and Tony. “Call me if you need anything, Peter.”

“Yep, I will, thank you, thank you, thank you,” Peter replies over his shoulder, shoving Tony across the threshold into the apartment and quickly shutting the door behind them.

“Mr. Stark, it’s the middle of the night—what are you _doing_ here?” Peter asks him.

“I think the more important question is what is _Norman Osborn_ doing over here?” Tony retorts. “Why the hell are rich guys with fancy Rolexes and giant wads of cash showing up at your apartment at all hours of the day and night?”

“I dunno—you’re a rich guy with giant wads of cash showing up at my apartment at all hours of the day and night,” Peter says testily. “You tell me.”

“No, I’m a dead guy,” Tony snaps back. “That means I can do whatever the fuck I want, including mercilessly murdering rich old creeps taking advantage of broke college kids. Is that how you’re paying for this apartment?”

Peter blinks at him, and then lets out a bark of incredulous laughter. “Okay, if you’re implying what I think you’re implying, then you are so, _so_ wrong. Why would you even think that?”

“You said it yourself at breakfast,” Tony says, jabbing a finger at him.

“That was a _joke_ I made because you were treating me like I’m a dumb kid or something,” Peter says. “I’m friends with his son, Harry, remember? Harry _Osborn._ Mr. Osborn just came over to check on me, ‘cause my asshole landlord was here earlier harassing me for rent money that I definitely already paid him—with money I earned from my totally legal job as a research assistant. I didn’t know what to do, so I called Mr. Osborn. I’m not—I don’t—he’s like a _father_ to me.”

And that feels like a punch to Tony’s gut, knocking the wind right out of him. If he hadn’t felt like an imposter before, then he certainly feels like one now.

“Why didn’t you call me?” he asks.

He can tell the question takes Peter aback. The kid can’t answer right away, shifting his weight and crossing his arms over his chest.

“I dunno,” Peter says finally. “I guess...I just didn’t think about it. You were gone for a really long time, Mr. Stark,” he adds gently. “I’ve been doing this on my own for a long time, and…look…I’m really grateful for everything you did for me when I was a kid, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, but I’m not your responsibility anymore.”

For a moment, Tony can’t say anything to that. It feels the same way it does when Morgan refuses to call him dad, like a knife twisting in his heart.

“Yeah,” he finally agrees, sniffing. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry. I just...I forget you’re not a kid now, that’s all.” He gestures towards Peter, offering a weak smile. “We can still be friends, though, right?”

Peter’s stance relaxes a little. He smiles back. “Yeah, yeah—of course we can.”

“Great,” Tony says, sniffing again. “I could really use a friend right now.”

Peter’s smile briefly curls wider. “Yeah, me too.”

He looks at Tony, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you thought I was bringing rich dudes over here and—what, entertaining them on my crappy futon? Believe it or not, but I do have some dignity left.” He pauses, the corner of his mouth twitching, then adds, “I mean, I’d make them take me to a really fancy expensive hotel and buy me room service.”

Tony snorts out a laugh. “Good for you. You deserve the best.”

Peter smiles again, and then his expression softens. “Are you okay, Mr. Stark? Can I do something for you?”

“Yeah, you can,” Tony says, motioning towards the door. “I need you to come with me. We’re gonna go talk to Strange.”

Peter’s smile evaporates, his eyes going wide. “Talk to Strange? Whoa, whoa, whoa—you said that was a bad idea.”

“I did say that, yeah, but—look, I gotta know,” Tony says, a hint of desperation creeping into his voice. “I can’t rest until I know. And I’d really like for you to be there with me when I figure it out. If we’re gonna have to go our separate ways again, then I’d at least like to say a proper goodbye this time.”

Peter looks at him for a long moment, his eyes shining. And then he nods.

“Great. Thank you,” Tony says gently. He motions towards the door again. “Let’s go, kid. You and me, buddy.”

A graveyard silence descends between them after that as they head downstairs and climb into the car and make their way across town. The quiet stretches on block after block, the tension building, until Tony abruptly pulls the car over, throwing it into park and shutting the engine off.

“Yeah, okay, listen...this whole thing about you not being my responsibility anymore—it’s not gonna work for me,” he blurts out. “I can’t accept it. I _can’t._ I know you’re not fifteen anymore, I know you’re not… _mine,_ but I really don’t fucking care. I died, and all my fucks died with me. All I care about now is getting my family back together before this all potentially goes to shit again, and that includes you. And I guess you’re just gonna have to deal with that, ‘cause it is what it is. So. Tough titties, pal. You’re stuck with me, whether that’s for the next thirty minutes or the next thirty years.”

He chances a glance over at the kid. Peter is looking back at him, his expression tender.

“I love you, too, Mr. Stark,” he says.

Tony nods, sniffing. “Great. Glad we’re in agreement. So, now that we’re on the same page—you gotta let me try to help you, okay? And if I...can’t be here to help you, then you gotta promise me right now you’ll get help from someone else—go to Happy and May, go to Pepper, go to Norman fucking Osborn, just don’t keep living like this, ‘cause it’s only gonna get worse. I know it will—I’ve been there. And I can’t bear the thought of you being there, too. So make me this promise, alright? _Please._ I gotta know that you’re gonna be okay.”

“I promise,” Peter agrees, his eyes serious.

“Thank you,” Tony says, reaching over to briefly squeeze Peter’s arm. “Thank you.”

He clears his throat a couple of times, trying to collect himself, and then starts the car again, but before he can pull back into the driving lane, Peter stops him.

“Mr. Stark, wait a sec…I have something else I really need to tell you before we talk to Dr. Strange,” Peter says, wringing the hem of his hoodie around his hands.

Tony puts the car back into park, shifting in the seat so he’s turned towards Peter. “What’s that, kid?”

“I, uh…I think I know how you got here. _Why_ you’re here,” Peter confesses.

Tony raises his eyebrows at him. “You’re serious?”

Peter swallows, nodding. “I did a lotta thinking after you left my apartment this morning—about your theory about parallel universes? And the stuff with Dr. Strange?”

“Uh-huh,” Tony says slowly. “And what did you figure out?”

Peter swallows again. “I have...bad news and worse news. Which do you want first?”

“Well. Neither sounds like a great option,” Tony grimly replies. “But give me the bad news first. Let’s ease into it.”

“Okay. Here’s the bad news—I’m like, ninety-nine-percent certain that you’re not in the wrong universe,” Peter says. “I did the math after you left my apartment, you know—to figure out the decay rate for one of these inter-dimensional nexuses? And unless my math is wrong, the nexus already would have closed and reality righted itself, or else both universes would have collapsed in on themselves and imploded. And my math isn’t wrong. I sent it to my boss—Reed Richards—you don’t know him because he showed up here after you died, during the whole Skrull invasion thing, but he’s crazy smart. Like no offense, but if you’re a genius then he’s like, a _super_ genius. And he agrees with me.”

Tony releases the breath he had been holding.

“Okay, but…that sounds like _great_ news,” he says cautiously. He eyes Peter. “What’s the catch?”

Peter wets his lips with his tongue, staring at the dashboard rather than at Tony. “The catch is…that yes, I’m pretty sure you’re not an alternate universe Tony Stark. But…”

“But?” Tony prompts.

Peter finally looks over at him again, his eyes apologetic. “But…you also might not be…you."

“I’m not me? What does that mean? You think I’m...what, an impersonator?” Tony asks, confused. A thought occurs to him, and he makes a soft sound of distress. “Oh, buddy, Peter—I swear on my _life_ I’m not a Skrull if that’s what you’re worried about. I can prove it—”

“Oh god, no, I don’t think that,” Peter says quickly, looking queasy at the idea. “I wouldn’t be in this car with you if I did. I mean, like, you’re not...the _original_ you, brought back to life or whatever. You’re maybe not even...real...”

Tony frowns at him, gripping the steering wheel tighter, his knuckles going white. “Okay. You’re gonna have to explain that with a little more detail, bud. A _lot_ more detail.”

“I know. Um…I’m trying to figure out how to tell you, ‘cause of the whole Dr. Strange binding me to eternal silence thing…”

“You’re a smart kid. Figure it out,” Tony says a little tersely.

“Okay, okay, uhhh…right, I got this,” Peter says. He clears his throat. “Have you ever seen the original Ghostbusters movie, the one with Harold Ramis and Bill Murray?”

“Oh, Jesus, help me, here we go,” Tony mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Yep, I’ve seen it.”

“Okay, great. And there’s that scene towards the end where the Ghostbusters are on top of that apartment building facing off with that spooky Sumerian god lady?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So imagine the four Ghostbusters are Dr. Strange, a world-renowned astrophysicist, a super freaked out FBI agent, and me,” Peter says, “and the scary Sumerian god lady is...well, a scary lady capable of godlike things.”

“You mean like manipulating probability and reality?” Tony asks.

Peter snaps his fingers. “Yeah, exactly.”

“Okay, yes, I’m picturing this in my mind,” Tony says. “Actually, I think this would make for a better movie. But go on.”

“Right, so—in the movie, the spooky god lady told the Ghostbusters that they had to choose the form of the Destructor, remember? And whatever the Ghostbusters think about, the Destructor would take that form and then use it to destroy New York City? And they try to clear their minds so that won’t happen, but—”

“But they fuck that up and the giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man shows up to destroy the city,” Tony says a little impatiently. “Yeah, I remember. Where are you going with this?”

“Well, there was all this crazy reality-bending stuff happening, and at one point, Dr. Strange was gonna do one of his magic tricks to try to stop it, and he told us to clear our minds so there wouldn’t be any interference or something. But I have _never_ been good at that mindfulness or meditation crap—my brain is pretty much constantly making noise—”

“Sounds about right.”

“—so I’m trying really, _really_ hard not to think about anything, right? But...”

Peter trails off, a guilty expression on his face.

“But what?” Tony prompts. “What happened?”

Peter takes another deep breath. “Alright, well...I’m trying to clear my mind like I said, but then I thought about… _you._ About...how I really, really wished you were there, like...alive again. And then like a week later…you show up on my doorstep,” he says. “So I think...I think maybe...”

“You think I’m your Stay Puft Marshmallow Man,” Tony says flatly.

Peter bites his lip, nodding. “I think you might be my Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.”

Tony stares straight out through the windshield, slowly shaking his head. “Wow. I thought I was having a pretty bad existential crisis before, but this is a helluva lot worse than just being an alternate universe imposter. Now I’m questioning whether I’m even real.”

“I am so, so sorry, Mr. Stark,” Peter says, wringing his hands together.

“Okay, let’s just...calm down and think rationally here,” Tony says, looking back at him. “There’s still some things that don’t add up—the arc reactor scar, for one.”

“Yeah…I think I can explain that…I told you I’ve been dealing with this awful chronic pain stuff, and I remembered how you used to complain about it, too, and about your bad heart and stuff,” Peter says. “And, well, I thought, if you _were_ to come back, I wouldn’t want you to suffer, or have it be like, a Pet Sematary situation where you come back all fucked up and evil. So I made sure to imagine you like… _really_ healthy and whole.”

Tony blinks at him. “And the pee, Peter?” he asks, dreading the answer.

“Uhhh…yeah…I can explain that too, but you’re really gonna hate the answer,” Peter says weakly.

Tony momentarily closes his eyes, bracing himself. “Just…rip the bandaid off, kid.”

“Okay so the FBI guy showed up at my place right as I was getting back from a long patrol, and I know this isn’t healthy but I really try to avoid using the bathroom while I’m in the suit because it’s a huge hassle—I gotta like get half-naked just to take a pee. It’s a serious design flaw,” Peter continues. “So I didn’t get to go to the bathroom before all this crazy shit started going down, and I had to take a leak _so bad_ the whole time, so that was kinda on my mind, too, and I guess it just…transferred over.”

“This is hell,” Tony says, shaking his head. “This…is hell. I’m still dead, and I’m in hell right now. That’s what’s happening.”

“I am so sorry, Mr. Stark,” Peter says again, sounding on the verge of tears. “Please don’t be mad—I don’t understand how magic works, and it was _completely_ an accident.”

Tony takes a deep breath, trying to collect himself. “Okay. Okay. This is—fine. It’s fine, kid. Really. It is. Everything is...really fine. We just…we’ll go talk to Strange and get it sorted out, alright?”

He starts the car again, and then hesitates. He reaches over, grasping Peter’s shoulder and squeezing firmly. “Whatever happens next—I want you to know that I’m proud of you. I’m so, so proud of you, Pete, and there’s not a goddamn thing you could ever do to change that. Okay?”

Peter nods, his eyes shining wetly in the glow from the streetlights filtering through the windows.

“Okay,” Tony says again, pressing the backs of his fingers briefly to Peter’s cheek before putting the car into drive and pulling out onto the street, headed towards whatever fate awaits him.

***

Fate finds him sitting in an ancient armchair at a gleaming wood table, reluctantly drinking tea that tastes like mushrooms boiled with cloves and old gym socks, while Stephen Strange sits across from him and intently listens while Peter reluctantly tells his tale again.

“Quite fascinating,” Strange says, when Peter finally finishes and collapses back in his own chair beside Tony, looking drained.

“Oh, so now you find me interesting,” Tony replies dryly, spitting a mouthful of tea back into his cup.

Strange ignores the comment.

“The early Buddhist text the _Pali Samaññaphala Sutta_ describes the ability to create a manomāyakāya—a mind-made body,” he goes on to explain, peering at Tony over steepled fingers. “In modern Western occult parlance, such physical psychic emanations are also known as tulpas, or thought-forms. Some argue that these emanations are able to take on a sentience and life of their own. It seems this would be more evidence in their favor.”

“So you’re saying I’m a walking, talking figment of the kid’s imagination,” Tony says, gesturing towards Peter, who looks like he’s ready to drop to his knees and ritualistically disembowel himself. “I mean, what happens if he gets hit by a bus tomorrow and bites it? Do I just… _poof,_ vanish? ‘Cause if my existence is dependent on the kid’s, I’m in trouble. He has _no_ sense of self-preservation.”

“No,” Strange says brusquely. “Were you even listening to anything I said? You are an entirely separate entity, endowed with enough vitality to be considered a real conscious being, free of your maker’s control.”

Tony turns to Peter, whose own vitality looks like it’s been sucked out of his body. “You hear that, kid? You can’t tell me what to do.”

Peter just makes a strangled noise, covering his face with his hands.

“So what happens now? Am I a real boy?” Tony asks Strange, a little coil of anxiety twisting in his gut. “Can I…get the flu? Age? _Die_ again?”

“You’ve been created in the image of your former self,” Strange replies. “Philosophically, you are an aberration against nature. But biologically, you are an ordinary human, unremarkable in any way.”

Tony frowns at him. “Are you single? I get the feeling that you’re single.”

“Mr. Stark, _please_ stop,” Peter begs quietly, tugging at Tony’s sleeve.

Tony brushes him off. “So what I’m gathering here, Doctor, is that a completely ignorant neophyte—” he jerks at thumb at Peter—“created a whole sentient human being out of nothing. Hm. Interesting. Maybe your ookie-spooky magic isn’t as complicated or special as you say it is.”

“I’m saying that a completely ignorant neophyte foolishly interfered in extremely dangerous and complex magic, and fortunately only caused a minor annoying disruption rather than tearing apart the very fabric of our existence,” Strange coolly replies, which wrings another tortured sound out of Peter.

“Yeah, okay—whatever strokes your fragile ego, pal,” Tony says, getting to his feet and collecting his coat. He motions to Peter. “Alright, kiddo. Sounds like we’re done here.”

“I hope you can now peacefully enjoy the remainder of your new life, Stark, until death comes calling again,” Strange says, standing and making a gesture towards the door.

“Got a little morbid there at the end, Doc, but thanks,” Tony tells him, reaching out to shake Strange’s hand. He takes a step closer to the wizard, keeping a tight grip on Strange’s hand and dropping his voice. “And, uh…maybe think twice before you put any more magic spells on the kid, or death may come calling at _your_ door, capiche?”

The corner of Strange’s mouth twitches upwards. “It’s always a pleasure chatting with you, Tony. I’m truly glad you’ve returned to our plane of existence.”

“Yeah, I bet you are,” Tony says, putting an arm around Peter’s shoulders and steering him away.

***

“Mr. Stark?” Peter says quietly once they’re back in the car and headed home.

“Yeah?”

“I just wanna say again…I’m really sorry. It’s just—these last five years…I’ve been trying to figure out how to do this whole superhero thing on my own, and it’s—so hard sometimes. It’s hard, and it’s lonely, and sometimes it really fucking blows. And whenever it gets really bad, when I feel like I can’t do it anymore, I think about you. About...all the sacrifices you made. And then I feel like I can keep going. I know Iron Man is gone, I know you’ve been dead for five years, but you’re still my hero, Mr. Stark,” Peter tells him. “And now I’ve messed everything up, and I’m so, so sorry.”

“It’s alright, kid. I’m only mad about one thing,” Tony says.

Peter looks at him, eyes welling up again. “What?”

“You took care of the mess left from the arc reactor, but you didn’t think to give me a six-pack or something?” Tony chides. “I’m trying to woo back my former wife here. Rippling washboard abs and maybe some Thor-like biceps would have really helped me out.”

Peter startles, and then offers a tentative smile. “Sorry. If I’d known in advance that I was going to magically conjure you out of thin air, I would have made sure to give you a really bangin’ sexy bod.”

Tony smiles back, patting Peter’s arm. “Thanks, bud. It’s the thought that counts. _Literally,_ in this case.”

“I think you’ll do okay without all that, though,” Peter says earnestly.

Tony nods. “Yeah, you know what? I think maybe I will, too.” He pats Peter’s arm again. “I think we’re both gonna be okay.”

***

When he arrives home, Tony finds Pepper still awake despite the late hour, sitting on the ugly velvet sofa in the living room reading a book. She looks up as he comes in, an inquisitive smile lighting up her face.

“Where have you been off to all these hours?” she asks. “I was worried.”

“Just figuring things out,” Tony replies, sitting down next to her. “You know, the deep philosophical questions about existence and sentience and purpose. Stuff like that.”

Pepper’s smile tugs upwards. “Oh? And were you successful this time?”

Tony blows out a long breath. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“And what did you find out?”

“That you were right,” Tony says, taking her hand in his and lacing their fingers together. “I was approaching this whole existence thing like it was a problem that needed to be solved, instead of a gift like you told me it was.”

Pepper’s smile softens, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “I’m glad you finally came to that conclusion. It only took two lifetimes.”

Tony smiles back at her, and then he shifts on the sofa, turning towards her and grasping her other hand in his, as well. “I gotta be completely honest with you here, honey. There’s a good chance I’m not… _your_ Tony. That I’m…quite probably nothing more than the physical manifestation of a wish made by a pain-addled, sleep-deprived, pill-popping, vodka-soaked college student who thinks it’s acceptable to sleep on a futon and eat pizza found left on a bus seat. So. If that’s just...a little too much high strangeness for you to deal with, if you just...want me to leave town and get on with your life, I get it. I really do.”

“Tony,” Pepper says, squeezing his hands. “Do you love me?”

Tony returns the squeeze, tenderly smiling at her. “Truly, madly, deeply.”

“And do you love Morgan?”

“With every fiber of my being,” Tony says firmly. “I don’t think there’s a universe out there, or a state of being, where I don’t love you both with my whole heart and soul.”

“Then you’re my Tony,” Pepper says, leaning forward to kiss him. She cups his face in her hands, smiling. “I’d know you anywhere.”

She kisses him again, while he’s still too dumbstruck with love and gratitude to say anything. Then she stands, smoothing down her skirt.

“I’m going to head to bed,” she tells him.

“Oh. Alright,” Tony says, reaching out to take one of her hands again, kissing the backs of her fingers. “Night, dear. See you in the morning.”

Pepper cocks her head, her smile turning coy.

“Why don’t you go to bed, too,” she suggests. “With me.”

“Oh,” Tony says again, which really fails to convey just how pleased he is with the direction this conversation has gone in.

He kisses her hand again, and then lets her lead him into their bedroom.

***

“That was…better than I remember,” Pepper murmurs later, her head cradled against Tony’s shoulder and her hand resting on the bare unscarred skin of his chest.

“Is that a dig at my original self’s technique?”

Pepper laughs. “No, it’s just…it’s been awhile.” Her voice goes soft, tender. “I’ve missed you.”

Tony presses a kiss into the top of her head. “I’m back now, honey. And hey—what do say we make it official? Get hitched?”

Pepper raises an eyebrow. “Get hitched? We’re already married.”

“Well. Technically speaking, we’re not anymore. Death do us part, and all that,” Tony says. “We just fornicated. Some people frown on that, you know. Think of the example we’re setting for the children.”

“Mm,” Pepper hums, an amused smile curving her mouth. “Well. When you put it that way, I suppose we ought to get married.”

“Excellent. Should we plan on keeping the old wedding date for the forthcoming nuptials?” Tony asks. “It’d make remembering our new anniversary a helluva lot easier.”

Pepper’s smile curls wider. “I think I can get on board with that.”

They seal the promise with another kiss, and whatever lingering doubts Tony has about his place in this universe vanish, washed away by the roaring tide of love he feels for her.

***

Tony settles into his new life in the following weeks. He goes for long bike rides through Central Park with Morgan, fully enjoying his new strong heart and lungs. They finish reading Harry Potter together, and move on to the next book in the series. Morgan introduces him to the surprising vast and comic library of videos capturing various ill-fated birds flying into Spider-Man’s face while he’s swinging through the city.

“These are terrible,” Tony tells her, feeling guilty about how amusing he finds these videos. “You’re terrible.”

“I know,” Morgan gleefully replies. “You wanna watch another?”

“Absolutely.”

He makes a couple dozen more after-school peanut butter sandwiches for her, sitting with her at the kitchen island, asking her about her day and feeling grateful, so very grateful, for this chance to be a part of her life again.

“Thanks, dad,” Morgan says one afternoon, after Tony passes her another peanut butter sandwich.

Tony raises an eyebrow, a slow smile spreading across his face.

“Oh, so now I’m dad? Did you decide I’m no longer an alternate universe imposter?” he asks, playing it cool even as he feels like he’s about to vibrate apart from elation.

Morgan shrugs. “I don’t think it matters, right? I mean, it’s like you said...you’re still Morgan’s dad, in whatever universe you’re in. You’re still _my_ dad.”

“I am,” Tony agrees, reaching across the island to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “I love you, squirt, in every universe.”

“I love you, too,” Morgan tells him around a mouthful of peanut butter sandwich, as easy as breathing.

***

A week later, Tony makes a trip upstate to the new Avengers facility, built on the foundation of the old one. It’s smaller than its predecessor, a little more modest and unassuming than it would have been if Tony had been around to have a say in its design and construction. There’s a small monument on site dedicated to Natasha, which gets Tony terribly choked up the first time he sees it, and another dedicated to him, which he finds delightfully obnoxious and amusing, now.

He makes his way to the facility’s medical wing, strolling down a long, brightly lit hallway with a box tucked under his arm. He stops at one of the recovery rooms and raps his knuckles on the door before opening it and poking his head inside, smiling when he sees Peter sitting propped up in bed, surrounded by chemistry textbooks.

“You need me to tell you in excruciating detail about my favorite pair of Captain America undies before I come in?” Tony asks.

Peter snorts, rolling his eyes. “No. I know it’s you. Only the real Tony Stark would callously mock my trauma like that.”

Tony grins at him, coming in and sitting down in the chair beside the bed, setting the box down on the floor. “How are you holding up? I see you’re feeling well enough to keep up with your studies. Good for you.”

“Yeah, I mean, there’s not a whole lot else for me to do here. And I’m not too bad. The surgery went well. It was the best sleep I’ve had in years. And now I’ve got two vibranium hip joints, which is rad as hell,” Peter says, smiling. “I’m part man, part machine—with a little spider sprinkled in.”

“Very cool. You look good,” Tony observes, which is true. The dark circles under the kid’s eyes are gone, his coloring a little brighter. “Healthy.”

“Yeah, I feel pretty good,” Peter agrees. “It’s still a struggle some days, but…I’m feeling optimistic.”

“Good. I’m relieved to hear that,” Tony says, leaning down to pick up the box. He hands it to Peter. “Here. I got you something to apologize for killing your rat.”

Peter takes the lid off the box and looks inside, his whole face lighting up with a pure, startled delight that momentarily makes him look so much like the boy Tony remembers that it makes Tony’s chest hurt a little, in a bittersweet way.

“Aw, Mr. Stark!” Peter says as he pulls out the little orange kitten from inside the box. “I’m legit gonna cry.”

Tony grimaces, holding his hands up. “Please don’t.”

“I can’t help it—look at her tiny paws. She’s so cute it hurts to look at her,” Peter coos, before reluctantly putting the kitten back into the box. “But I can’t keep her. My landlord doesn’t allow pets. Harold flew under the radar, but I’m not sure a cat will.”

Tony holds up a finger. “First—she’s not a pet. She’s an emotional support animal—”

“What’s the difference?”

“I don’t know, but Morgan assures me there is one,” Tony says. “And secondly, I’m your landlord now—or really, Pepper is. She bought the building. I still don’t have a bank account. I wanna enjoy the anonymity of being a dead guy for a while longer before I attempt to wade into that legal mess.”

“She bought the _whole_ building?” Peter asks, eyebrows raised.

“Yep. We’re turning it into affordable housing. We’re gonna remodel the place, so you residents will have to bear with a brief stay in a hotel this summer—on our dime, of course—but I think you’ll appreciate the upgrades,” Tony says as he takes the kitten back out of the box and hands it to Peter. “So furball here gets to stay.”

“Wow, that’s so generous. Thank you,” Peter says, holding the kitten up and smiling at it. “In that case, I’m gonna name you…Virginia.”

“Absolutely not,” Tony immediately says. “No—you _cannot_ name the cat after Pepper. What if you behead this one, too?”

“I didn’t behead Harold. That was _your_ contraption.”

“No. If you name her Virginia, I’ll take back everything I said. No pets allowed. If you want to keep the kitten, give her another name. Morgan has the brother kitten—you know what she named him? _Whiskers._ A perfectly normal, acceptable name for a cat. Try again.”

Peter rolls his eyes. “Alright. How about…Antonia. Toni for short.”

Tony sighs. “Fine. I will grudgingly accept that.”

“I have never loved anything in my life as much as I love you, Antonia,” Peter tells the kitten before tucking her under his chin. He smiles at Tony.

“And what about you, Mr. Stark?” he asks. “Are you getting back in the swing of things?”

“Yeah, you know, I am,” Tony says, settling back in the chair. “I feel like I’m right where I belong.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> You can also find me on tumblr as [groo-ock](https://groo-ock.tumblr.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> You can also find me on tumblr as [groo-ock](https://groo-ock.tumblr.com/)


End file.
